I'm posting this in response to CAI's form letter urging families to post rave reviews to this website.
It makes me sad to NOT recommend the agency that helped us adopted our wonderful son from Guatemala. Our adoption was finally completed in 9/07, 2.5 years from our first interaction with CAI. We began in the Russia program. Despite CAI's insistance that the accreditation may not even slow us down (in 5/06), we swapped countries to Guatemala. We lost a lot in fees paid, but at least we were able to find our wonderful son.
I won't mention all the details, in summary CAI missed many deadlines due to unacceptable reasons. For example, medical updates and pictures were months late because their case manager was busy. We were 4 months behind in updates when we traveled to Guatemala. We went with three sizes of clothes because we had no idea what size our son was. When it came close to time to travel, CAI dropped the ball on an olympic scale. Because CAI wasn't communicating well with me, my friends on guatadopt helped me obtain the number of the lab (dna results) company. The lab helped me track my dna test to Guatamala and USE. I told CAI exactly when the notice of my pink would be available at USE. They insisted it wasn't. I knew it was there and I contacted my Congressman and USE, pleading to know the appointment date. No one answered. Then CAI finally called me, 12 hour before the appointment saying "oops, it was there". I missed my appointment. CAI was quite ambivalent and told me to find a way to contract USE directly and ask for another one. My ace case manager told me to read the fine print on the pdf of the expired pink she sent me, that would tell me how to contact USE. Gee, for almost 30K, I'd expect some more help. CAI also insisted that it wasn't their fault that I missed my appointment. I'm getting upset just remembering about it. FLEE!!!!
I feel for you. You are voicing your opinion in the best way known right now. That is the same kind of attitude I received during my recent interactions with them. It is pretty nervy to ask parent, whom you know are not happy with their service to be a reference.
I couldn't agree with you more. We had the worst experience of our lives dealing with them. We had all the same issues you are explaining and even worse. I could go on for weeks!!! I saved all the emails from them and I have met and became friends with most of their staff in Guatemala. They let us on to all of the lies we were being told by our agency. We were actually fostering and they actually threatened to take our child out of our care if we didn't keep quiet about how terrible of an agency they were. I have all the emails to prove it.
I am so happy they got declined Hague Accreditation. There are only 16 agencies that got denied out of all that applied. That tells you something right there. God has answered our prayers! Now they can not torture any other families in the future.
We have 3 other families we have met in our area that have used this agency and they all have been through nightmares.
Please think before you hire them.
Printer-friendly version
Reviews
Not so satisfied
I'm posting this in response to CAI's form letter urging families to post rave reviews to this website.
It makes me sad to NOT recommend the agency that helped us adopted our wonderful son from Guatemala. Our adoption was finally completed in 9/07, 2.5 years from our first interaction with CAI. We began in the Russia program. Despite CAI's insistance that the accreditation may not even slow us down (in 5/06), we swapped countries to Guatemala. We lost a lot in fees paid, but at least we were able to find our wonderful son.
I won't mention all the details, in summary CAI missed many deadlines due to unacceptable reasons. For example, medical updates and pictures were months late because their case manager was busy. We were 4 months behind in updates when we traveled to Guatemala. We went with three sizes of clothes because we had no idea what size our son was. When it came close to time to travel, CAI dropped the ball on an olympic scale. Because CAI wasn't communicating well with me, my friends on guatadopt helped me obtain the number of the lab (dna results) company. The lab helped me track my dna test to Guatamala and USE. I told CAI exactly when the notice of my pink would be available at USE. They insisted it wasn't. I knew it was there and I contacted my Congressman and USE, pleading to know the appointment date. No one answered. Then CAI finally called me, 12 hour before the appointment saying "oops, it was there". I missed my appointment. CAI was quite ambivalent and told me to find a way to contract USE directly and ask for another one. My ace case manager told me to read the fine print on the pdf of the expired pink she sent me, that would tell me how to contact USE. Gee, for almost 30K, I'd expect some more help. CAI also insisted that it wasn't their fault that I missed my appointment. I'm getting upset just remembering about it. FLEE!!!!
I feel for you!
I feel for you. You are voicing your opinion in the best way known right now. That is the same kind of attitude I received during my recent interactions with them. It is pretty nervy to ask parent, whom you know are not happy with their service to be a reference.
I couldn't agree with you
I couldn't agree with you more. We had the worst experience of our lives dealing with them. We had all the same issues you are explaining and even worse. I could go on for weeks!!! I saved all the emails from them and I have met and became friends with most of their staff in Guatemala. They let us on to all of the lies we were being told by our agency. We were actually fostering and they actually threatened to take our child out of our care if we didn't keep quiet about how terrible of an agency they were. I have all the emails to prove it.
I am so happy they got declined Hague Accreditation. There are only 16 agencies that got denied out of all that applied. That tells you something right there. God has answered our prayers! Now they can not torture any other families in the future.
We have 3 other families we have met in our area that have used this agency and they all have been through nightmares.
Please think before you hire them.