Surrogate Scammed by a Surrogacy Agency? Warning Signs You Cannot Ignore

You’ve decided to become a gestational carrier, but something about your current program doesn’t feel right. Communication is spotty, contracts are confusing, and the support disappears the moment you ask hard questions.

That nagging feeling is a warning sign worth taking seriously. If you suspect you’re being scammed by a surrogacy agency as a surrogate, the worst thing you can do is wait and hope it improves. Below are the most common surrogacy agency red flags — broken down by category — so you can protect your family and move to a safer program if you need to.

At Physician’s Surrogacy, the nation’s only OB-managed surrogacy agency, we’ve built our entire program around eliminating these exact problems. We know what bad looks like because we’ve helped surrogates who experienced it.

When Surrogacy Goes Wrong: Two Real Cases

Severe exploitation in the fertility industry isn’t rare. Unregulated agencies cut corners to protect their margins, and the women carrying the babies bear the consequences. Two recent cases illustrate how badly things can go when agencies fail surrogates at the most fundamental level.

The California Surrogate Custody Battle

In 2025, a case involving Kayla Elliott and Alexa Fasold in California shocked the fertility community.

According to reporting from NewsNation and NBC News, the agency had allegedly failed completely in vetting the intended parents before matching them with surrogates.

Kayla discovered that the baby she had carried was one of 21 children placed in foster care after the couple was arrested for child abuse.

Alexa, who hadn’t yet delivered, was left fighting in court to protect the unborn baby she was carrying. In her own words, Kayla told News24 she felt entirely lied to by the professionals she trusted. The case makes clear why rigorous, uncompromised screening of intended parents is not an optional step.

The FBI Escrow Theft Warnings

Financial exploitation is the other major failure mode.

The FBI has investigated surrogacy scams where unethical agency owners drained millions of dollars from escrow accounts, leaving both intended parents and surrogates with nothing. Funds meant for medical bills, travel, and surrogate compensation were siphoned by bad actors who preyed on the trust of vulnerable people.

When a surrogate discovers her escrow account is empty, she is often left responsible for hospital bills she never anticipated. These aren’t isolated failures — they’re systemic ones, made possible by a lack of regulation and a lack of oversight. Knowing how to identify these actors before you’re inside the process is the only reliable protection.

Surrogacy Agency Red Flags: Financial Deception

Financial transparency is the foundation of any ethical surrogacy arrangement. Unethical programs often mask predatory practices as standard procedure — and by the time you recognize the pattern, you’re already mid-journey.

The Bait-and-Switch on Compensation

“They promised me $60,000, but after all the hidden deductions and allowances I didn’t qualify for, I barely made $40,000” — this is a common complaint from surrogates who were misled by their agency’s advertised numbers. Watch for these patterns:

• Unrealistically high advertised totals. Some agencies advertise “total” compensation numbers that almost no surrogate actually receives. The headline figure includes maximums for rare situations — twins, emergency C-sections, invasive procedures — that inflate the number while the standard payout is far lower.
• Padding with allowances you’ll never use. Scammy compensation structures include allowances for unlikely scenarios: extreme lost-wage caps, twin multipliers, emergency C-section bonuses, or invasive mock-cycle fees. These pad the advertised number while actual take-home pay stays low.

At Physician’s Surrogacy, surrogate compensation ranges from $55,000–$75,000+ in a flat-rate package. You know exactly what your total is upfront, and your funds are always held in a third-party escrow account — not managed in-house by us.

Delayed Payments and Escrow Problems

Consistent payment delays are a direct warning sign about an agency’s financial stability. If a program is routinely late on monthly installments or requires you to jump through repeated hoops to get reimbursed for travel, maternity clothes, or childcare — funds are almost certainly being mismanaged.

The Communication Control Red Flag

An agency that monitors or restricts communication between you and your intended parents is almost always hiding something. When surrogates look back on bad experiences, controlled communication is one of the most consistently cited warning signs.

When an agency insists on monitoring every email or text, they may be trying to:

• Prevent you from disclosing that your payments are late
• Hide the fact that the intended parents paid substantially more than you are receiving
• Stop a genuine relationship from forming between you and the parents — because a close surrogate-IP relationship makes agency negligence harder to conceal

You should never feel censored in your conversations with the people whose baby you are carrying. At Physician’s Surrogacy, we support healthy communication between surrogates and intended parents — our case managers are there to support you, not to stand between you and the family you’re helping.

Medical Negligence: The Red Flags That Put Your Health at Risk

Your physical health should never be compromised for the sake of speed, profit, or agency convenience.

Unethical programs often treat the medical process as an afterthought — handing you off to a fertility clinic and leaving you to manage confusing, painful medical protocols without support.

Ignoring ASRM Guidelines

The American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) has established guidelines specifically to protect gestational carriers. Agencies that ignore these guidelines are prioritizing their bottom line over your safety. Watch for:

• Exceeding safe delivery limits. ASRM recommends a carrier should not exceed five total deliveries or three C-sections in her lifetime. Programs that push past these limits are putting your long-term health at risk.
• Pressuring you into scheduled C-sections. Some programs pressure surrogates into scheduled cesarean deliveries for the convenience of the intended parents’ travel schedule — not for any clinical reason. This violates your bodily autonomy.
• Disregarding physical boundaries. Any program that pushes you toward unnecessary surgical risk has a fundamental disregard for your health.

As the nation’s only OB-managed surrogacy agency, Physician’s Surrogacy goes beyond standard ASRM guidelines. Our in-house physicians design the screening protocol, monitor your pregnancy directly, and can intervene peer-to-peer with your delivering Obstetrician/Gynecologist (OB/GYN) if complications arise.

The Match-First, Screen-Later Trap

Many traditional programs create a damaging pattern by matching you with intended parents before completing your medical clearance. The result:

• Delayed clearance. You’re matched first, then forced to wait months for the intended parents’ specific In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) clinic to schedule your screening.
• Clinic rejections after the match. If the clinic flags a minor, fixable issue — a small polyp, for example — you’re dropped from the match immediately.
• Wasted time with real emotional cost. You restart the entire matching process, losing months because you weren’t given medical clearance upfront.

Legal Red Flags You Cannot Afford to Ignore

Your surrogacy contract is the legal framework for your entire journey. It must protect your rights, your body, and your compensation — not the agency’s convenience. These are four legal traps that should send you looking for a different program:

• You’re asked to share an attorney with the intended parents. If a program suggests using their in-house lawyer to represent both parties to “save time,” walk away. This is a direct conflict of interest. You are entitled to an independent reproductive attorney paid specifically to represent your interests — not the agency’s, not the intended parents’.
• You’re pressured to sign a contract overnight. A 50-page legal agreement is not something you should be expected to review in 24 hours. Pressure to sign quickly — before you’ve had time to review with your own counsel — is one of the clearest surrogacy agency red flags in the legal category.
• The contract is vague about bed rest and lost wages. Unethical contracts demand bed rest if medical complications arise but fail to guarantee your lost wages during that time. An ethical contract protects your family’s financial stability if a doctor orders you to stop working.
• There is no clear parentage protocol. A missing or vague pre-birth order strategy can create serious legal problems at the hospital. Without proper steps outlined in the contract, you could be held temporarily responsible for the baby after delivery.

How to Verify an Agency’s Credentials

When you’re researching programs, it’s reasonable — and smart — to dig deep before committing. Here’s how to verify that an agency’s medical claims are real:

• Real medical directors have public profiles. A legitimate OB-managed agency won’t hide its physicians. Their names, credentials, and hospital affiliations are publicly verifiable — not just listed on a website.
• Board certifications are searchable online. You can verify any physician’s board certification, active medical license, and professional history through your state medical board or the American Board of Medical Specialties.
• Fake advisors lack active licenses. A common pattern in fraudulent programs is listing “medical advisors” who don’t hold active, verifiable licenses in any state.
• Clinical buzzwords are not clinical care. An agency can use medical language on its website without providing any actual physician oversight during your pregnancy. Ask specifically: who reviews your screening results, and who can intervene clinically if complications arise?

At Physician’s Surrogacy, our in-house OB/GYNs are fully licensed, board-certified, and actively manage surrogate care. We encourage you to research our medical team thoroughly — the Physician’s Advantage page lists our Advisory Board with full credentials.

What to Do If You Feel Trapped

Recognizing you’re in a bad program is the first step. Knowing how to leave it safely is the next one. Your physical health, your family’s stability, and your financial security come first — and you have legal options regardless of where you are in the process.

Leaving Before the Contract Is Signed

If you haven’t signed a legal agreement or begun any medical procedures, leaving is generally straightforward.

• You can walk away without penalty. Without a binding contract in place, you’re typically free to leave the agency.
• Keep your resignation formal and brief. Inform the agency in writing that you no longer feel comfortable proceeding with their program.
• You don’t owe them an explanation. If they’ve exhibited clear surrogacy agency red flags, you don’t need to justify your departure.

If you’ve already signed a contract, the exit process requires more care — but leaving is still possible.

Leaving After the Contract Is Signed

If you’ve already signed, the process is more complex — but it is possible to leave safely.

• Consult your independent attorney immediately. Review your specific termination clauses with your legal counsel before taking any other action.
• If you were never given independent counsel, find one now. A lack of independent legal representation at contract signing is itself a breach of ethics — and an outside reproductive attorney can help you assess your options.
• Pause all medical procedures. Your attorney can help you determine how to safely terminate the agreement before embryo transfer or further injectable medications.

Why Surrogates Choose Physician’s Surrogacy

Every red flag described in this article represents a problem we’ve built our program specifically to prevent. Here’s what a different model of care looks like in practice:

• We are the nation’s only OB-managed agency. Your journey is overseen by practicing OB/GYNs — not business administrators or coordinators without clinical training.
• You receive upfront medical clearance. You complete full medical screening before matching with intended parents, so you’re never dropped by a clinic after you’ve already formed a connection with a family.
• Average matching time is one week. Because medical clearance happens first, our average time from consultation to confirmed match is one week — compared to the industry standard of 6–12 months.
• Compensation is flat-rate and transparent. Our surrogate compensation ranges from $55,000–$75,000+ with no hidden deductions or line-item tricks.
• All funds are held in independent escrow. Your compensation is never managed in-house by us — it’s held by a licensed, bonded, third-party escrow company.

Protect Yourself Before You Sign Anything

Surrogacy agency red flags are easier to spot before you’re inside a program than after. The time to ask hard questions about escrow management, medical oversight, and independent legal representation is during your initial consultation — not six months into a journey where you feel trapped.

Physician’s Surrogacy is the only agency in the U.S. where practicing OB/GYNs manage your care from screening through delivery. If you’re comparing programs or considering a transfer, start your application and talk to our team about what our program actually looks like from the inside.

Frequently Asked Questions

Julianna Nikolic

Chief Strategy Officer Julianna Nikolic leads strategic initiatives, focusing on growth, innovation, and patient-centered solutions in the reproductive sciences sector. With 26+ years of management experience and a strong entrepreneurial background, she brings deep expertise to advancing reproductive healthcare.