adoption is part of our family you are story. it's just a different way of building a family. the birth mom can change her mind at any time. >> yeah. and we always knew that. >> it's all a gamble. >> all they wanted buzzwas a baby to adopt. they ended up feeling hurt and cheated by the very people who promised to help them find one. >> there is nobody watching out for us but us. >> it sounds too heartless to believe. >> are there people who prey on people leaving couples with empty wallets and empty arms. >> how does it feel seeing them doing this again? >> it makes sick. >> wait until you see what we

found when we took uh our cameras under cover. >> $7,000? >> this baby was offering her baby for adoption, but was she even pregnant? >> it look ares like a pillow. >> what about adoption agencies? are some as careful as they should be. >> i'm going to say on the form i don't do drugs. >> okay. >> i'm actually a correspondent with dateline nbc. >> oh. >> a hidden came >> here's andrea canning with hope and heart break. >> adoption can be a time of joy. >> it was probably the most amazing moment of my entire life. >> but it's also a multi-million dollar industry. >> it's been unbelievable and eye-opening. >> the transactions impact people's lives. >> it sounds like you are describing buying a house. >> right, but it's a baby. >> and the outcome is anything but certain. >> i would say it's all a

gamble. >> because, for the thousands of families who successfully adopt each year, there are others whose adoptions fail. >> the pain you suffer is very similar, if not the same, as the death of a child. >> tonight you will meet some families whose adoptions didn't turn out the way they hoped. >> it's hard to know who to trust. >> would you say you were the perfect prey? >> oh, yeah. >> with our hidden cameras we'll do under cover, inside the world of private adoption. >> i want to get as much money as i can, to be honest with you. >> sometimes it's hard to know what's real and what isn't. >> i'm trying to find out the truth about what's going on. >> are you even pregnant? >> chris and amy lemcool had known each other since high school. newly married they were excited to build a family close to where they had grown up in yuba city, california. but they were struggling. >> i was pregnant and had a

miscarriage about a year after we got married. >> that must have been heart break ing. >> it was a terrible experience. >> after the miscarriage, ten more years of disappointment. doctors appointments and a failed round of ivf treatment didn't bring chris and amy the we'll be right back they longed for. >> did you find yourself wanting children more and more as you kept facing the this heartbreak? >> i didder for sure for sure. i never thought about my life without children, never. >> chris and amy decided to try adoption. they began looking for a pregnant woman interested in giving up her baby. you can do this a number of ways, through an agency or on your own. chris and amy hired an attorney who put them in touch with a 24-year-old pregnant woman living out of a michigan motel. her name was heather burgess. >> heshe'd talk about her parents her childhood. it was normal conversation. >> she put you at ease? >> absolutely. >> you felt like this could be the one? >> we knew it was the one. >> yeah.

>> chris and amy were thrilled when heather said she wanted them to adopt her baby. they agreed to pay her living expenses for the last few months of the pregnancy and moved her into an apartment. >> you must have been excited. >> very excited. >> absolutely. >> paying a birth mother's living expenses is legal in most states but doesn't guarantee the adoption will happen. the birth mother can change her mind at think time during her pregnancy. still, amy and chris were confident heather wouldn't. >> we spent about three days total with her. >> two months after they started supporting heather, amy and chris flew out to meet her face to face. >> we went to see movies together. i took her shopping for maternity clothes. >> amy went with heather to the doctor for an ultrasound. >> how special was it for you to go to this ultrasound and actually see the baby. >> it was amazing. having not had a pregnancy go that far to go to an ultrasound

myself, it was really exciting for me. >> heather handed amy copies of the ultrasound pictures, telling her she was a mother now. >> i immediately was like calling family saying, it's a boy, here's his name. >> two weeks later, everything changed. the manager of the apartment amy and chris were renting for heather called with terrible news. >> the apartment manager said heather has left her apartment. she told her neighbors to take whatever they wanted and she was gone. >> what a blow. >> it was awful. i have been through a miscarriage and i have been through that. there is no difference. >> they had sent heather nearly $9,000. they had come to think of the baby she was carrying as their son. but heather had vanished. >> the birth mom can change her mind at any time. no matter how much hundred you have given them. no matter how much time you spent with them, how much you have invested emotionally, it can be over like that.

>> yeah. >> yeah. >> we always knew that. >> amy didn't think heather had changed her mind. she suspected heather had duped her. she ended up being right. >> when you hear the name heather burgess, what goes through your mind? >> i need to get her in jail. she's hurt many families. >> sheilaeila davis says heather is a seeshl adoption scammer. she said heather took money from her parents, potential adoptive parents when she wasn't even pregnant. >> how was with it easy for her to take money? >> first off con artist. she makes you sympathize with her. she brings you into her world. >> sheila reported heather to the michigan police. she was arrested and pleaded guilty to larceny but skipped town before sentencing. it was while heather was on the lam she moved into that apartment rented for her by chris are and amy. >> for me that was a scary thought.

did we just aid and abet a criminal? >> by the time she connected with chris and amy, heather was really pregnant. but it turns out though chris and awere the ones paying her bills, heather was shopping her baby to other adoption professionals, asking them for money, too. >> did you feel stupid? did you feel how could we have believed her and mott seen signs? >> i don't think i have felt stupid. that pay be because of the emotional hurt. i never felt stupid. i mean, she's just that good. >> chris and amy contacted their local sheriff's department and investigators tracked heather down to a hotel in california. she was arrested and pleaded guilty to fraud. >> why did you pursue charges? >> for me, i didn't want it to happen to anybody else. >> heather was sentenced to spend a year in jail. sheila davis didn't think that was the last she 'd hear about heather. >> there was a part of me even then knew she wouldn't quit. >> was sheila right?

we can decided to go undercover and find out. you won't believe what we caught on our hidden cameras. >> are you even pregnant? >> you haven't seen the last of heather. when we come back, she's at it again, using a different name but playing the same game. she's got just one thing on her mind. >> we are talking about $7,000? >> total. >> how do we ensure you are going to choose us? >> it's a trust situation. >> yeah. a little crushed vanilla bean. twenty hundred vanilla specks. breyers has fresh cream, sugar and milk. breyers natural vanilla. milk and fresh cream and only sustainably farmed vanilla. here's my ice cream dance. ever spin on your head? yeah... once. breyers. the good vanilla. we're proud to announce that our milk and cream come from cows not treated with artificial growth hormones.

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chris and amy lemcool's

dreams of an adoption have been crushed by a scammer. she promised them her baby and disappeared after taking their money and their hearts. >> i think at that point i felt this is just never going to happen. we were thinking, i think we give up. just wasn't meant to be. >> that all happened ten years ago. while there are no solid statistics on how many prospective parents fall prey to scams each year the problem is getting worse. >> describe the business you got into 18 years ago versus the business you're in today. >> i have come across a scam once every three months. i just had three in one month. >> what are the tricks? >> i knew one girl that went around with an artificial stomach. she stole from a maternity store. >> nanette is an adoption facilitator. she charges prospective parents a fee to connect them with

pregnant women, a practice legal in california. but she says even she can't alwaysle tell if a birth mother is a scammer or not. >> i could have the girl right there with me. she could still be a tole talltall ---le total scam. she had no intention of placing that baby but thoughs the right things to say. >> is the end goal for the birth mothers money? >> for some. not for all. i have had girls say i don't want a dime. they're wonderful. >> when we met nanette, she was trying to track down a birth mother she had suspicions about. her name was michelle. she had disappeared after promising her baby to a california couple. >> this couple gave her how much money? >> i want to say roughly around $2,000 exchanged is. >> nanette texted michelle king where she was. >> she says she's in las vegas. >> michelle asked her to get the couple to send her more money, and fast.

>> if they won't, i want to say that says help, me how they gonna treat my baby? >> we went online to see if we could find michelle. adoption professionals sometimes share information about birth mothers on adoption websites. it didn't take long to find this message asking about her. it looked like michelle was phishing for money elsewhere. >> she's a piece of work. is she's unbelievable. >> we wanted to meet her in person. so a "dateline" producer called and said he was interested in adopting her baby. michelle sent a photo of her pregnant belly. she texted again and again asking for makeup. her boyfriend left this voicemail. >> we haven't eaten all day. my girlfriend is eight months pregnant. please do something, like, soon. >> we sent ale small amount of money for expenses and asked to meet in person. turned out she wasn't in las vegas.

she was in pennsylvania. there she is getting into the car we sent to pick her up. take a closer look. does she look familiar? she should. turns out michelle is none other than heather burgess, the woman who scammed chris and amy all those years ago. >> how surprised were you to learn from us that heather, michelle or ohwhatever she 's calling hes is still at it all these years later? >> not surprised that she's still doing it. that's how she makes her living. >> in the car riggeded edwith our oh hidden cameras, heather didn't say much to her boyfriend or to us. was she nervous? what was she adjusting under her sweater? as the car made its way toward us we set up a camera in the restaurant. two "dateline" producers were there posing as prospective adoptive parents sp. >> hi, michelle. >> hi.

how are you? >> take a seat. >> we already knew heather was lying about her name. we wonderered what else she would tell us. >> how are you feeling? >> i'm feeling good. it's hard to sleep and stuff, move. >> how do you feel about giving up the baby? >> i can't let my feelings get involved with what's best for the baby. i can't. i can't feed the baby. i can't do anything for this baby. why not give it a better life, you know? >> are you working with anyone else? talking to i any other couples? >> no, uh-uh subpoena. >> we knew tafs a lie. she had just taken $2,000 from a couple in california. >> i want to make sure you're not talking to anybody else. >> right. >> and that if you choose us you are going to keep your word. >> right. i would never do that. i wouldn't put your hopes up or expectations high. i need somebody that's committed

to this child. >> we asked for a list of oh living expenses they need help with like utilities food and housing. >> to the move into a little apartment it would be one month security and one month's rent to move in. so $2400. >> $1200 a month. >> so $7,000. >> total. >> okay. how do we ensure you are going to choose us? >> it's a trust situation. >> yeah. >> it's all about trust? >> yeah. >> pretty much. >> she may have thought she was fooling us. we had a few surprises for her, too. because heather wasn't our only lunch guest that day. >> coming up -- >> such a liar. >> caught on camera by one of the couples she scammed. what will heatherer have to say to them? and tos us. >> heather? it looks like your belly is gone. you took the pillow out? >> when "dateline" continues. te plan' and i was like 'why?' and then sprint was like 'so you can

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the woman sitting across from us at this restaurant table said her fame wasname was michelle. she was 35 weeks pregnant and interested in letting us adopt her baby -- if we gave her $7,000needed for living expenses. >> are you talking to any other couple? >> uh-uh.

>> problem was we knew michelle was heather burgess, a known adoption scammer, and she had already promised to baby to another family and had taken $2,000 from them. >> is there anything we could know about your past we should be aware of? want to make sure we know everything. >> no. i come from a healthy family. >> have you ever been in trouble with the law? >> no. >> no. >> neither of oh youyou? >> no. i got a ticket for speeding. >> that's it? just a speeding ticket? >> what heather wasn't telling us was she has an extensive criminal record that includes convictions for fraudulently taking money from adoptive parents like chris and amy lemcool. we invited them to watch from behind the scenes as heather tried to getten money from us. >> we can't keep the baby. we have no jobs. we can't raise the baby. i figured we might as well put the baby up for adoption. >> such a liar. >> i sent you a picture of the

ultrasound. >> oh, my god. >> how does it feel seeing them do this again? >> makes me sick. >> it's sickening that they are preying on people the way that they are. >> how has the pregnancy been for you? >> it's just been tiring because i'm older. just tired all the time. >> and perhaps this was the biggest lie heather told us that day. he had been fidgeting with her sweatshirt in the car? we kept looking at her belly across the restaurant table. we weren't sure she was even pregnant. it was time for the me to introduce myself. >> there's andrea. >> i told her i was a present of the prospective parents who were really our producers. >> i couldn't handle it, you know, if it didn't the work out. i did look into it. i found something that you are actually working with another couple at the same time. is that true? >> no. >> no, we are not working with anybody. >> not working with anybody.

>> you guys are the fist people we have met or talked to. >> there is not a couple in california you have met or taken money from. >> no. >> no. >> i was afraid you would say that. we have been looking into adoption scams. my name is andreaen canning. i'm a correspondent for "dateline nbc." are you even pregnant? >> yeah. >> how far along are you? >> eight months. >> can i feel your belly? >> who are you? >> i'm trying to find out the truth about what you are doing. i don't know if i should call you michelle or heather. is your real name heather? you have done this before. >> is that a pillow? >> it looks like a pillow. do you have anything to say? >> are you going to call -- i'm just going to -- >> heather and her boyfriend didn't stay to answer my questions. we offered them a lift back to the motel, but they walked off. >> how was iter for you two, reliving that through someone else's eyes and watching it again unfold.

>> to me it's frustrating to know that that's still happening. >> then as our shoot wrapped up we spotted heather and her boyfriend a few blocks away and, guess what, she no longer looked eight months pregnant. that bulge with under her sweatshirt was gone. >> heather? it looks like your belly is gone. you took your pillow out? >> a few minutes later, heather came back around the corner. she found chris and amy waiting. >> of course you don't remember who we are. >> heather, do you have anything to say to chris and amy? >> i'm sorry. >> you should be sorry. >> can i get a ride back? >> you don't realize you're hurting people. >> i don't think you're sorry. i don't think you care. >> she apologized. >> do you know what she was sorry for? she was sorry she got with caught. >> chris may have been right. a few days after the meeting the phone rang in nanette's office. the caller's name was new but she said the voice sounded awfully familiar.

she said it was heather claiming once again to be pregnant and looking for money. >> is she not realizing you might recognize her voice. >> she doesn't remember who she's called, she's called so many. >> is there anything adoptive parents can do to protect themselves? as our journey continues, i will be going undercover to find out. >> you just saw us con oh front an adoption scammer on our hidden cameras. even if couples don't contact a birth mother directly, there are other ways things can fall apart in the adoption process. next, we'll introduce you to a group of oh parentparents who say they had a different kind of problem than the couple you met. they didn't have a problem with the birt it was with an agency. >> she kept saying there is another family interested. are you going to match? sounds like you are describing buying a house. >> it's a baby. >> when "dateline" continues.

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we just told you the story of a fake birth mother who cheated would be parents out of their savings and their dreams. >> would you say you were the perfect prey? >> yeah. >> oh, yeah. >> yeah. these families feel they are victims, too, but their story is very different. hay don't blame an unethical birth mother. they blame the head of a state licensed adoption agency for the problems they experienced trying to adopt. >> i don't know how people that do things like this can sleep at night. >> new jersey coup indicate moria are rty and maggie stephan

signed on with the adoption agency in 2014. the owner, simone swenson promised to guide them through the process. >> she said sometimes it will feel bumpy, rocky and difficult. because that's adoption. sometimes it's hard. >> for a fee of oh $9,500, simone connected kate and maggie with a texas woman who was four months pregnant. >> how exciting was that? >> we were just feeling on top of the world. in a few months we are going to have a baby home with us. that's what we thought. >> simone said she would be the liaison with the birth mother and try to make sure things were okay. over the next few months, kate and maggie sent simone $5,000 to pay the living expenses and prepared a nursery for the baby they called charlotte. >> did you see this as your baby already? >> absolutely. >> it was yours? >> absolutely. >> she was named. she was claimed. we were ready for her to come. >> when the excited couple arrived in houston to pick up

their daughter, simone said the birth mother backed out, that she was a scammer. >> we started crying, shaking, saying we can't believe this is happening. >> simone filed a police report accusing the birth mother, tammy, of fraud. >> who were you up uh set with? system tammy. >> that might have been the end of it but they wanted an accounting of the failed adoption so asked for receipts for the money they spent. >> she would not give them to us, gave us a different story every time we asked for them. >> so things are starting to really seem unprofessional. but something probably much more. >> they grew suspicious and started tracking down other people who had worked with simone. and that's when they found out something they consider incredible. they weren't the only couple who thought they were going to adopt tammy's baby.

another couple had paid simone thousands of dollars for tammy's living expenses, too. >> we know that we all paid birth mother expenses for tammy until august. >> if kate and maggie were right, simone's agency had done something unethical and maybe illegal. take money from two families for the same baby. it's called double matching. it means double the money for the agency. and someone is taking advantage of that. it's just the lowest of the low. >> we examined the e-mails simone exchanged with the two couples.

it appeared she billed both a fee to match with tammy and charged both were her living expenses and gave them dates on tammy's condition just days apart. ba3 f1 they both with wondered where >> that makes you question what the reason are is for this. and where the money is going. >> the families gathered around the this table come from different parts of the country and all walks of life. they have one thing in common. they all paid simone swenson's agencier for adoptions that never happened. >> how much are we talking about? >> $24,000. >> we lost about $14,000. >> over $10,000. >> thirty. >> all the families agreed that simone made an excellent first impression. she sounds professional. >> when it came time to hatch them with a a birth mother and collect her fee they say simone's charm turned into a hard sem. >> she said say there is another family interested. are you going to match tonight? >> sounds like you are describing buying a house. >> right.

>> but it's a baby. >> then simone seemed to drop the ball completely. >> the minute she got the money. >> nothing. >> phone calls wouldn't get returned. >> ten days after the last due date we were given we waited to see if she would with contact us. we never heard anything. >> in the end, none of these families got babies through simone. in most cases, simone blamed the birth mothers for backing out but the tams suspected she might not be telling the whole story. >> how many of you around this table feel simone swenson lied to you? >> al uhl of us. >> the question is what did she say that was the truth? >> they say simone never sent detailed resets for thousands of dollars they spent to pay birth mother expenses and like kate and maggie they think she was not just disorganize oh niezed but was dishonest. >> she took so much away from us. the money really doesn't matter.

she took away a dream that we had to have another child. and that's what hurts the most. >> so what was going on? we decided to go under cover again and meet simone swenson for ourselves. >> coming up -- first we meet simone as prospective parents. >> we have a current birth mom right now that i'm willing to send you guys information on. >> then andrea meets her under cover as a birth mother who raises a tricky topic and gets a surprising answer. >> i'm going to say on the form i don't do drugs. >> okay oh. aww, this audit will take days. what a headache! actually...i... don't have a headache anymore! excedrin really does work fast. quiet! mom has a headache! had a headache! but now, i...don't. with 2 pain fighters, plus a booster, excedrin ends headaches fast. in fact for some relief starts in just 15 minutes. wow, my headache is gone. not gonna happen.

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the people sitting around this table blame the same agency for their failed adoptions. they were all grieving for the babies they never brought home. >> it's been hard. i feel like i have probably gone through some depression. i'm getting better abo >> my 4-year-old son would say prayers every night. he would say a second prayer for baby sister.

he would get to the end -- i promised myself that i wasn't going to cry. >> it's okay. >> he would get to the end and say why is mommy crying? >> they all filed police reports about simone swenson, the owner of the agency and last year the fbi took over the investigation. >> it was really hard to swallow. that someone or some agency that's licensed by the state could take advantage of us and another family and another and another. >> we decided to make an appointment to meet simone and find out what she'd tell us about her agency. >> hey. very are nice to meet you. >> two "dateline" producers met her in a coffee shop posing as a couple new to town, interested this adoption. >> what is it that you though? >> i have heard mixed stories. >> it is a very gut wrenching process.

>> simone told us adoption was risky. there were no guarantees. >> it's not us. >> she said it was part of her job to check bit mothers out. >> some of the moms are druggies. if we suspect it we let the families know. >> she said she charged $12,500 for her sirservices and we would pay for birth mother living expenses, too. she had a better track record than most. >> we probably had ten failed adoptions last year. >> out of how many? >> 45? >> ten failed adoptions last year is this year? that didn't sound right tos us. just among her former clients we spoke with we identified probably twice that. >> how long would we end up waiting to find a match? >> if you say, i want a white

child and your not specific i could probably match you today. >> at this point simone knew very little about us. adoption agencies are ex expected to check out propeck spif parents through a home screening before they connect them with a birth mother. simone didn't ask if we had been through that process before telling us she might have a birth mother for us. >> we do have a current birth mom right now that i'm willing to send you guys information on. >> and you're confident about her ? >> as long as she gets her bills paid. >> it all seemeder eded very fast just like the families told us. remember, simone gets paid when she connects a family with a birth mother. even if the adoption falls through later. so we wanted to know how carefully she really screens her birth mothers. >> it's her job, as the hired professional, to assess the risk. and then sell it as a package with risk. >> all the families we spoke to had signed contracts

acknowledging their adoptions might fall through. but they said simone didn't honor her part of the contract to try to figure out whether the birth mothers were on the up and up. >> do you believe she made a reasonable effort to verify what the birth mothers were saying about their situation? >> no. >> we decided to meet with simone one more time as uh our hidden cameras rolled. this time, i would be posing as a woman interested in giving up my child for adoption. it was an easy disguise for me as i was actually seven months pregnant at the time. we told simone we had recently arrived from florida. >> so you guys want us to work on an adoption? >> yeah. i just want to know more about it. >> simone said first things first. she would need me to take a pregnancy test. >> we need proof of oh pregnancy. >> then she told me what money i could expect. >> we cover your adoption-related expenses which is housing, food,

transportation. all that kind of stuff. >> are some babies more sought after? >> white baby girls are more sought after. >> you can't get extra money or anything for it. >> tell me your expectation in terms of money. what is it that you want? >> i want to be able to get as much money as i can, to be honest with you. >> what about $5,000? is that the highest is this. >> in the meeting simone insisted she dealt honestly with everyone and said she would work fast to find us a family. in fact, she mentioned prospective parents she had met recently . >> actually, i have a family i just met with yesterday. they are moving to one of the more expensive areas. >> could she have been talking about the "dateline" producers she met the day before? remember, simone knew hardly anything about their background. that didn't seem to bother her. >> this family i met yesterday is just -- they are wonderful people . >> how carefully would she check out my story? i dropped a big hint that i might be doing drugs. >> i mean, this is an awkward

question for me but i have to ask it. i mean, what if you don't want to be drug tested? >> i can't force you to be. this is the thing. i'm here to help you guys. i'm not here to force you to do anything. >> do you have to tell the parents? >> if i know about it, yes. >> you will tell them? >> if i foe them. >> you could say you didn't know about it, right? >> if i -- here's the thing. if i ask you, are you doing drugs and you tell me no, i have to go based on that. simone said it was better to tell the truth. >> we don't want the family to say yes to lies. >> was she willing to look the other way when i all but admitted i planned to lie. >> i'm going to say on the form i don't do drugs. >> okay. >> sheila davis, head of the michigan adoption agency was shocked. she said if a birth mother said that to her as i said to simone she would insist i take a drug test.

>> we can only approach the doctor to test if we have suspicions or see evidence of it. >> would that not be suspicious enough? me asking her -- >> that's enough. that would be enough, absolutely. >> there was something else. in most states the baby's father has a legal right to know about an adoption before it happens. not telling him could put the adoption at risk. listen to how simone reacted when i said this. i don't want the birth father to know. i though who it is, but i'm not going to tell him. >> if you don't tell me i don't know who he is. >> if we know who he is, we have to look for him. >> so unethical. in my state it would be illegal. i gave her a key piece of information. >> yaepep. wow. >> if i met with you and told you, i'm not going to tell you who the birth father is. i though who it is. i might be on drugs.

want to get as much money as i can. would you have alarm bells going off just about me in general? >> huge. huge. >> it was time for simone to find out who i really was. >> coming up -- >> i'm actually a correspondent with "dateline nbc". >> oh. >> simone didn't want to talk thenment then. but she did later. what's her side of the story? >> i wouldn't exploit children for money. so you will inhale life. when we breathe in allergens our bodies react by over-producing six key inflammatory substances that cause our symptoms. the leading allergy pill only controls one, flonase controls six. and 6 is greater than 1. so roll down your windows, hug your pet dust off some memories, make new ones. new flonase. 6 is greater than 1. this changes everything. in the quaint town of petaluma you'll find a locally owned restaurant where people come together for a great sandwich. (but) if you don't live there you could probably find one of these restaurants right around the corner. the 250 calorie egg white delight.

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i was undercover at a houston coffee shop, posing as a birth mother interested in adoption. we had come to meet simone swenson, head of a houston adoption agency after hearing from some former clients who thought she cheated them. >> you guys want us to work on an adoption? >> it was time for simone to find out who i was. >> you don't lie to the families families? >> no. >> that's why we are here today. i'm actually a correspondent with "dateline nbc." so we are actually looking into you. because we have had a lot of complaints from prospective parents. >> okay. >> a lot of complaints.

do you have anything to say about that? >> yeah, i don't think it's -- oh, gosh. >> also that you have been double matching birth moms to multiple families. >> simone didn't stick around to talk to us that day. later she agreed to sit down and answer some of our questions, including one with about with a she told us in our hidden camera meeting. >> if i ask you, are you doing drugs and you tell me no, i have to go based on that. >> when i met you in houston i strongly hinted that i was probably doing drugs. >> correct. mm-hmm. >> when i told you that i was going to write on the form for prospective parents that i wasn't doing drugs you said, okay. >> mm-hmm. >> and you would have to go with that. >> right. >> you kind of looked the other way. >> well, i didn't look the other way. what i said was they can write whatever they want on that form e. we would let a family know we suspect that there is drugs involved. >> simone says it's up to the birth mothers to disclose

personal information or not. but how would she explain why she told me it was okay to keep the name of the baby's father a secret? >> i know who it is, but i'm not going to tell him. >> that could be a serious issue down the road. it could jeopardize an adoption. >> well -- as far as the birth father goes, i would need -- again, we -- all -- we met and there were all of these questions. it's not necessarily how it happens. >> you said you didn't want to know. you said don't tell me. >> okay. i don't necessarily remember telling you that. >> rowyou did. >> simone asked us to pause the interview. then she told us this. >> we always want to inform the birth father if you know the name. we would have gotten into that later down the road after you had really decided if you wanted to place for adoption. >> you said "i don't want to know" right away. >> probably because i didn't want to know right that second. >> simone gave the same reason

for not asking our producers posing as prospective parents more background questions. she said she would do it later. for the families she said they were lashing out p because their adoptions failed. >> i think they are angry with me because there feeds to be somebody to blame, to be honest with you. >> simone told us she always warns clients about how risky adoption can be and has offered to rematch those unhappy families with new birth mothers. >> this is a passion for me. this is a business. but it's also something that i believe in because i was adopted myself. >> simone says her priority is finding safe homes for babies, not the money she can make. but what about the allegation that she took money from kate and maggie and another family for the same child? >> both sets of prospective parents were sending money. we have the documents. we have the e-mails to prove it. >> as far as kate and maggie go, what happened with that process is we matched kate and maggie

with a birth mother. and that birth mother was a difficult birth mother who kind of came and went. >> simone said she was considering connecting kate and maggie with a new birth mother. >> we had two birth mothers and two families. we were in the process of figuring out which family was going to be -- because sometimes we change those up with the family's permission. >> the e-mails make it clear there is one birth mother, tammy, two families. >> that's e-mails make it clear we are informing both families about the one mother which we are allowed to do. >> when both are sending you money for the same birth db. >> they are not. >> they both sent you money for tammy. >> we had two birth mothers. >> there is one birth mother that both families are db. >> there is one birth mother in the e-mail. >> simone told us she follows the law and sent all her clients receipts to show the must be she collected for the birth mothers went to them. according to inspection reports

filed by the texas department of family and protective services, simone has been cited numerous times for failing to keep proper financial records. in fact, one inspector noted simone had no system in place to track transactions. >> we just saw person after person saying -- >> yeah, i don't know. >> -- that you aren't doing the things you are supposed to do and the end game is you. not the babies, not the birth mothers, not the prospective parents but simone swenson is in this for herself. >> i would say that's not true. i wouldn't exploit children for money. >> six of the families we spoke to have filed a lawsuit against simone accusing her of negligence and fraud. simone told us the lawsuit is baseless and full of lies. she put us this touch with four former clients who successfully adopted through her agency. >> she worked with me until she got it done.

it took two years. but we we've got our son. >> for now, simone told us she's getting out of the adoption business. she wants to move on. moving on may not be so easy for some of the families we spoke with who say they have lost their money and their trust. >> so the money ran out. >> it was our oh life savings. >> what can people do to protect themselves against the risks of adoption? adoption expert sheila davis says until the laws change, prospective parents will remain vulnerable. >> reg insulation needs to take the profit out of making an adoption splan plan. >> she has three basic rules for parents. never send birth mothers money directly. work with professionals and do your homework. >> you have to check things out. you have to research before you sign up with an agency or before you pay anybody money. >> chris and amy lemcool were so

devastated by their experience with fake birth mother heather burgess, they gave up on domestic adoption all together. they headed to china and brought home their precious daughter rachel. >> everything you had been through was worth it? >> yeah. >> oh, yeah . >> kate and maggie's journey ended happily, too. after their texas adoption fell through, they signed up with an agency closer to home. last june there was a baby in their nursery, at last. their darling daughter charlotte. >> an adoption is a miracle. it does work. you know, it's about bringing people together who wouldn't normally get together for something really good. we just hold onto that. >> that's all for this edition of of "dateline." up next, the bible as blockbuster. >> are you uh the messiah? >> another edition of "dateline" from my colleague natalie morales. i'm lester holt. thanks for joining us.

get ready. it's hollywood's newest extravaganza with a story that's all the rage. >> jesus is the ultimate superhero. >> my kingdom is not of this world. >> it was heartbreaking. but he had to go through it. >> the bible as blockbuster. tonight we te you inside one of the biggest trends in entertainment. >> people really connect with this character. i think it speaks to a deeper need. >> and they are the surprising power couple behind it. >> we are jokingly referred to as hollywood's noisiest christians. >> the king of reality tv. >> he has an imagination nobody else has. >> and a former tv angel with a new empire built on faith.