I live in Colorado and the office here was the first to close. That was in February. Our homestudy was done but not yet back form the state and our USCiS application should have been sent out upon it's return. It wasn't. Only after we had waited the 6-8 weeks it takes for approval (We didn't know that we'd be sent notification in the mail and have to do fingerprints etc, we've never done this beforeh and no one told us about it!) Long story short they threatened us that they'd suspend our file if we didn't give them about $13,000 by a random date back in March/April, (don't remember when but I have it in email.) Needless to say I had already looked at their 2004 and 2005 tax returns (you can view other agencies too online at Guidestar.com) and saw that things weren't good and to boot, our case worker had been let go at the end of December. The writing was on the wall at this point. They prayed on desperation of many families. The sad part is that so many people did send them the money and now are SOL. One women even tried to stop her cashiers check but couldn't.
Meanwhile, we were advised to not switch from Commonwealth while our USCIS approval was pending so we didn't. We received it at the end of May. Supposedly they submitted their part on or about the 1st of March but i believe this is a lie. I have been told that USCIS has to deposit the $ within 24 hrs of receipt. Our money was not deposited until the middle of March. WE went on a long vacation in June so didn't do anything about changing agencies until we got back. I researched and found that they had made arrangements with 2 agencies here in Denver that could take over our State portion of things. One agency cannot help us as they can no longer work with families going to Russia. Now why would they tell me to go to this agency if they knew they couldn't hep us to begin with? Anyway, we are now waiting for Commonwealth to release our homestudy to our new agency. They have had the Release for 2 weeks and cannot give us a time frame for it's completion. They received it before they announced their closure and so when we got an email from Dawn Hill saying the agency was closing for good, she also said she'd get to us when she could but she had more important clients to deal with!!! They no longer respond to our emails. So we remain HOSTAGE to the whims of Dawn Hill and the incompetence of Commonwealth Adoptions.
BTW, if you'd like to discuss things or make a complaint with the Sate of Colorado, call Laurie Roxbury at the Dept of Human Services (or whatever it's officially titled- they are investigating the closure and continued problems with commonwealth in the State of Colorado). Her number is 303-866-5475. You can also call Marlene Romero at 303-866-5088 to request the most recent Report of Inspection and and pending legal action. I requested it today so I'll have to wait to fill you in on that...
Here are a few assurances from Dawn Hill, Executive Operations Director about the state of Commonwealth Adoptions as quoted from her emails to us. On March 12, 2008, she said "I completely understand why you are concerned about the abrupt closure but rest assured, it was based on circumstances outside of any stability of the agency. I'm not at liberty to discuss with you the reasons we closed the office and let go of the staff, but it was not motivated by financial considerations." and after more closures and "restructuring" on March 25, 2008, she said this, "We sent out a notification to all families explaining our need to shift our business plan and focus on what we do best - which is completing adoptions and being a placement agency. The decision to downsize all our offices was a strategic decision to ensure best service to families. Businesses change their models all the time and we have elected to change ours. This change does not impact your adoption at all."
What a joke, it doesn't "impact" our adoption at all!!! it's been a year since we stared with them and we currently don't even have a homestudy that anyone can see/access/use/verify/update, much less the two children we had hoped for!!! We are now looking to spend another $1000 dollars or so just to change to our new Colorado agency plus who knows how much for the new International Agency. And if this hadn't been a cruel enough joke already, we were offered to adopt an (emergency) private adoption of a healthy 2 day old Caucasian male baby on Friday evening. We had to have a valid homestudy and be able to be in Florida the following day at noon to get him before he had to be turned over to the Foster Care System!!!! I don't know how my family will come to be, but I do know that we missed a HUGE opportunity because of Commonwealth's ineptitude and their lack of responsibility to ALL their families. Not just the ones who have paid the most money! (No offense to anyone else but we've already been dealing with their problems since February so I'd have to say we have to have a place at the front of the line here... and how much time can it really take to put our file in an envelope and put it in the mail???) Oh and did I mention that our USCIS approval is only good for a short amount of time??? So tick-tock our time is expiring as we speak.
At this point my attorney husband is looking at the implications of her assurances and her failure to release our homestudy, not to mention recovering the costs incurred thus far and future costs associated with fixing their "closure" screw ups. And then there is the baby that might have been ours! the just keep digging the liability hole deeper and deeper.
As for in you in a lawsuit, we'd definitely be interested. I want to see Dawn Hill squirm on the stand and I want to see them all be sent to jail for their deceit. At the very lest, these people should NEVER be able to work in, around, near or have anything to do with social work, children or adoption!!! We've been contemplating a lawsuit since February but didn't really take it seriously because what kind of money are you going to get from a Non-profit? And then how many kids would suffer because of it? Not worth it until now. Now there are not any children that are going to suffer because we and the rest of you sue the sox off them.
If any of you from Colorado want to reach Vi Pearce, Anney Grossberg, Diane R or Ashley Hall, let me know and I can give you contact info. Feel free to contact me for anything further. tmahoneykneisel@gmail.com
This makes no sense to me. While I'm no fan of CAI, or most agencies for that matter, you have to take some responsibility for getting your own documents in and helping your adoption progress. I adopted 6 years ago, and things were admittedly much easier back then..but I did not sit around and wait for the agency to tell me every little thing. And when something went wrong or was delayed, i didn't blame the agency. Int'l adoption is tough and sh** happens, and sometimes its not the agency's fault. You are silly to think that they actually have power over a foreign government.
Now that the company is going out of business I'm sure every family who is not happy will blame them for everything under the sun. From my research, this agency has been in business over 10 years with many happy families. It seems as though the last few years things just went downhill for them. Maybe they became jaded from working in the field for so long? Or maybe they just got greedy. Bit off more than they could chew, and as a result their customer service suffered? I wish you all the best of luck. But don't just jump on the bandwagon just because you can. I'm sure not EVERY family has a claim worthy of a lawsuit.
You must be joking. First of all there are also DOMESTIC families like us who lost everything. People like us who saved and lost everything. People like us who placed all our hopes, after years of infertility problems, in the hands of this "wonderful" agency (who still had their hand out wanting money from us on the very same they decided to close their doors). YOU are the "silly" one for posting this comment and INSULTING hundreds of families. I think you need to be on the bandwagon of minding your own business and not judging people who lost their hopes and dreams because of Commonwealth.
I find it funny and a little insulting when you get people on here or other forums that bash others for explaining their misfortunes with an agency. CAII has been going down the tubes for a while...and unless your in this boat with the rest of us maybe it's best not to say anything at all. No one cares that CAII was a "great" agency at one time...what matters now is that 400+ families are being affected by the incompetence of this agency. Many (and I mean MANY) of these families are childless...so to me it's insulting to have someone come on here (who has the joy of having children) and break someone down even further than CAII did. Not only that, you attempt to blame us (or her) for the misfortunes that have happened with CAII....how dare you!
CAII has swindled people out of money, time, patience, and babies. They've broken hearts by playing the games and being as irresponsible as they have been with the agency. That agency DESERVES to go under...and those people that work for them...I hope that they can't find ANYTHING in their line of work again! Serves them right!
Unless you are in the same boat as the rest of us...maybe it's best to not say anything at all because no one cares if CAII was good THEN...the point is, they are not NOW!
Thanks,
Gina
While you are entitled to your opinion, I feel you are completely out of line on this one. You adopted during the time period that I did, 6 years ago, and you are right it was much easier then, but still stressful. Also, adoption costed much less then than it does now. I would ask you to put yourself in the shoes of so many people that did their part this last couple of years to work with CAI. I went back in 2006 and feeling loyal to CAI I stuck with them for a year while waiting for them to become accredited, as I felt they were the right agency to assist with a second adoption. I did everything I was suppose to, even went above and beyond and still no results. I stopped my adoption in February 2008, as I felt something was seriously wrong with the agency.
The agency was significantly different 6 years ago than it is now. You cannot judge all of us, if you did not have the experience. CAI has made millions of dollars and now the gravy train has stopped.
Who said ANYTHING about a foreign government??? You really have no idea what I was talking about, do you???? I didn't say anything about the international part of our adoption because we never got anywhere near that!!! They closed the office in the middle of the night, transferred us to case manager after case manager (3 to be exact) and 3 offices, closed or "restructured at least 2 other office before finally closing in the period of 7 months!!! Our file sat on the Director of Operations desk for about 6 weeks before it was even looked at after the Denver office closed, and only because I started calling to find out where the approvals we were waiting for were! They still won't release my homestudy or respond to our messages. We even missed out on an emergency adoption opportunity in Florida because they can't be bothered to release our home study! Did you even read my post??? There is plenty of deceit and liability going on.... not one word of it has anything to do with any foreign laws, agencies, magistrates, courts, translators, or governments, etc. Nothing!!! It all has to do with Commonwealth's inability to DO THE RIGHT THING!!! So next time you post, maybe think about keeping it relevant or post individually on your own subject. Your comment has noting to do with my post. Take responsibility. Ha. What do you think I have been doing all this time???? Not "jump on the bandwagon", agin, did you read my post? I'm one of 43 families here in Colorado that they left in the lurch to begin with. There's no "jumping on" here. I'm one of the original members to be damaged here. Really, your comments are truly insulting...
You are right in one area. They do not have control over the foreign governments, BUT they do have control over what they do in relation to them. When they were getting NO referrals from Vietnam they continued to add more families. I began questioning them immediately about the seeming lack of referrals. I was logged in in May of 2007 and until May of 2008, they had TWO referrals and had taken in over 70 families. Is that appropriate? All of those families were required to pay the $1,000 fee to move to another program if they chose...that is $70,000. Where did that go? As a sidenote. I moved to the domestic program, so the foreign thing doesn't fly here. I was told these exact words, "The CAII domestic program is going strong and is in no danger of shutting down" This was told to me in May of 2008. Finally, CAII must take responsibility for their lack of Hague accreditation. There were a handful of agencies that were denied and CAII was one of them. They still make excuses for this and refuse to take responsibility for their actions. I am happy you worked with them when they were doing well....good for you. It is a shame that the 400 families that are affected by this have to feel personal shame for things out of their control. I did all I was asked. Did my paperwork. Kept copies. Paid fees. Found a new agency when my original local agency shut down from their partnership with CAII. Paid more fees. Trusted the people that were advising me and hoped I too would fulfill my dream of becoming a mother. No one really knows what happened, but if I took over $10,000 from a client and then just said, oh well. Sorry it didn't work. I would be sued...guaranteed. It really angers me that someone would even try to say that because they did business with an agency 6 years ago, that agency deserves any kind of break. YOU have no idea. None, cause you weren't involved or affected. If you would like to help the families get back the over 5 million dollars that CAII has said was used for services rendered (in one year mind you), jump on in. If not, don't blame the families cause you really don't get it.
By the way, I, and I'm sure you too feel that at one time Comonwealth was probably a really great agency to use. I understand that things changed dramatically in international adoption in the last few years. That is not the question here. What I have is a serious problem with is the way things have been handled in the last year. Somewhere along the way, they crossed the line and started making bad and then terrible decisions. It ahs been a long time since they made a decision to do the right thing. It's a shame.
I am with you and I have you in my database. I don't know if my lawyer is able to do anything either. I have kept everyone's email that said they are interested in the class action suit. Please let me know if there is anything I can do for you. I am all about getting even some of my money back. It is terrible what they did to you, me and (from what I heard) 400 other families. trishd3022@yahoo.com
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Reviews
Caught in the Commonwealth debacle also
I live in Colorado and the office here was the first to close. That was in February. Our homestudy was done but not yet back form the state and our USCiS application should have been sent out upon it's return. It wasn't. Only after we had waited the 6-8 weeks it takes for approval (We didn't know that we'd be sent notification in the mail and have to do fingerprints etc, we've never done this beforeh and no one told us about it!) Long story short they threatened us that they'd suspend our file if we didn't give them about $13,000 by a random date back in March/April, (don't remember when but I have it in email.) Needless to say I had already looked at their 2004 and 2005 tax returns (you can view other agencies too online at Guidestar.com) and saw that things weren't good and to boot, our case worker had been let go at the end of December. The writing was on the wall at this point. They prayed on desperation of many families. The sad part is that so many people did send them the money and now are SOL. One women even tried to stop her cashiers check but couldn't.
Meanwhile, we were advised to not switch from Commonwealth while our USCIS approval was pending so we didn't. We received it at the end of May. Supposedly they submitted their part on or about the 1st of March but i believe this is a lie. I have been told that USCIS has to deposit the $ within 24 hrs of receipt. Our money was not deposited until the middle of March. WE went on a long vacation in June so didn't do anything about changing agencies until we got back. I researched and found that they had made arrangements with 2 agencies here in Denver that could take over our State portion of things. One agency cannot help us as they can no longer work with families going to Russia. Now why would they tell me to go to this agency if they knew they couldn't hep us to begin with? Anyway, we are now waiting for Commonwealth to release our homestudy to our new agency. They have had the Release for 2 weeks and cannot give us a time frame for it's completion. They received it before they announced their closure and so when we got an email from Dawn Hill saying the agency was closing for good, she also said she'd get to us when she could but she had more important clients to deal with!!! They no longer respond to our emails. So we remain HOSTAGE to the whims of Dawn Hill and the incompetence of Commonwealth Adoptions.
BTW, if you'd like to discuss things or make a complaint with the Sate of Colorado, call Laurie Roxbury at the Dept of Human Services (or whatever it's officially titled- they are investigating the closure and continued problems with commonwealth in the State of Colorado). Her number is 303-866-5475. You can also call Marlene Romero at 303-866-5088 to request the most recent Report of Inspection and and pending legal action. I requested it today so I'll have to wait to fill you in on that...
Here are a few assurances from Dawn Hill, Executive Operations Director about the state of Commonwealth Adoptions as quoted from her emails to us. On March 12, 2008, she said "I completely understand why you are concerned about the abrupt closure but rest assured, it was based on circumstances outside of any stability of the agency. I'm not at liberty to discuss with you the reasons we closed the office and let go of the staff, but it was not motivated by financial considerations." and after more closures and "restructuring" on March 25, 2008, she said this, "We sent out a notification to all families explaining our need to shift our business plan and focus on what we do best - which is completing adoptions and being a placement agency. The decision to downsize all our offices was a strategic decision to ensure best service to families. Businesses change their models all the time and we have elected to change ours. This change does not impact your adoption at all."
What a joke, it doesn't "impact" our adoption at all!!! it's been a year since we stared with them and we currently don't even have a homestudy that anyone can see/access/use/verify/update, much less the two children we had hoped for!!! We are now looking to spend another $1000 dollars or so just to change to our new Colorado agency plus who knows how much for the new International Agency. And if this hadn't been a cruel enough joke already, we were offered to adopt an (emergency) private adoption of a healthy 2 day old Caucasian male baby on Friday evening. We had to have a valid homestudy and be able to be in Florida the following day at noon to get him before he had to be turned over to the Foster Care System!!!! I don't know how my family will come to be, but I do know that we missed a HUGE opportunity because of Commonwealth's ineptitude and their lack of responsibility to ALL their families. Not just the ones who have paid the most money! (No offense to anyone else but we've already been dealing with their problems since February so I'd have to say we have to have a place at the front of the line here... and how much time can it really take to put our file in an envelope and put it in the mail???) Oh and did I mention that our USCIS approval is only good for a short amount of time??? So tick-tock our time is expiring as we speak.
At this point my attorney husband is looking at the implications of her assurances and her failure to release our homestudy, not to mention recovering the costs incurred thus far and future costs associated with fixing their "closure" screw ups. And then there is the baby that might have been ours! the just keep digging the liability hole deeper and deeper.
As for in you in a lawsuit, we'd definitely be interested. I want to see Dawn Hill squirm on the stand and I want to see them all be sent to jail for their deceit. At the very lest, these people should NEVER be able to work in, around, near or have anything to do with social work, children or adoption!!! We've been contemplating a lawsuit since February but didn't really take it seriously because what kind of money are you going to get from a Non-profit? And then how many kids would suffer because of it? Not worth it until now. Now there are not any children that are going to suffer because we and the rest of you sue the sox off them.
If any of you from Colorado want to reach Vi Pearce, Anney Grossberg, Diane R or Ashley Hall, let me know and I can give you contact info. Feel free to contact me for anything further. tmahoneykneisel@gmail.com
Tamara
This makes no sense to me.
This makes no sense to me. While I'm no fan of CAI, or most agencies for that matter, you have to take some responsibility for getting your own documents in and helping your adoption progress. I adopted 6 years ago, and things were admittedly much easier back then..but I did not sit around and wait for the agency to tell me every little thing. And when something went wrong or was delayed, i didn't blame the agency. Int'l adoption is tough and sh** happens, and sometimes its not the agency's fault. You are silly to think that they actually have power over a foreign government.
Now that the company is going out of business I'm sure every family who is not happy will blame them for everything under the sun. From my research, this agency has been in business over 10 years with many happy families. It seems as though the last few years things just went downhill for them. Maybe they became jaded from working in the field for so long? Or maybe they just got greedy. Bit off more than they could chew, and as a result their customer service suffered? I wish you all the best of luck. But don't just jump on the bandwagon just because you can. I'm sure not EVERY family has a claim worthy of a lawsuit.
are you serious????
You must be joking. First of all there are also DOMESTIC families like us who lost everything. People like us who saved and lost everything. People like us who placed all our hopes, after years of infertility problems, in the hands of this "wonderful" agency (who still had their hand out wanting money from us on the very same they decided to close their doors). YOU are the "silly" one for posting this comment and INSULTING hundreds of families. I think you need to be on the bandwagon of minding your own business and not judging people who lost their hopes and dreams because of Commonwealth.
Unbelievable!
I find it funny and a little insulting when you get people on here or other forums that bash others for explaining their misfortunes with an agency. CAII has been going down the tubes for a while...and unless your in this boat with the rest of us maybe it's best not to say anything at all. No one cares that CAII was a "great" agency at one time...what matters now is that 400+ families are being affected by the incompetence of this agency. Many (and I mean MANY) of these families are childless...so to me it's insulting to have someone come on here (who has the joy of having children) and break someone down even further than CAII did. Not only that, you attempt to blame us (or her) for the misfortunes that have happened with CAII....how dare you!
CAII has swindled people out of money, time, patience, and babies. They've broken hearts by playing the games and being as irresponsible as they have been with the agency. That agency DESERVES to go under...and those people that work for them...I hope that they can't find ANYTHING in their line of work again! Serves them right!
Unless you are in the same boat as the rest of us...maybe it's best to not say anything at all because no one cares if CAII was good THEN...the point is, they are not NOW!
Thanks,
Gina
Wow pretty gutsy!
While you are entitled to your opinion, I feel you are completely out of line on this one. You adopted during the time period that I did, 6 years ago, and you are right it was much easier then, but still stressful. Also, adoption costed much less then than it does now. I would ask you to put yourself in the shoes of so many people that did their part this last couple of years to work with CAI. I went back in 2006 and feeling loyal to CAI I stuck with them for a year while waiting for them to become accredited, as I felt they were the right agency to assist with a second adoption. I did everything I was suppose to, even went above and beyond and still no results. I stopped my adoption in February 2008, as I felt something was seriously wrong with the agency.
The agency was significantly different 6 years ago than it is now. You cannot judge all of us, if you did not have the experience. CAI has made millions of dollars and now the gravy train has stopped.
reply-
Who said ANYTHING about a foreign government??? You really have no idea what I was talking about, do you???? I didn't say anything about the international part of our adoption because we never got anywhere near that!!! They closed the office in the middle of the night, transferred us to case manager after case manager (3 to be exact) and 3 offices, closed or "restructured at least 2 other office before finally closing in the period of 7 months!!! Our file sat on the Director of Operations desk for about 6 weeks before it was even looked at after the Denver office closed, and only because I started calling to find out where the approvals we were waiting for were! They still won't release my homestudy or respond to our messages. We even missed out on an emergency adoption opportunity in Florida because they can't be bothered to release our home study! Did you even read my post??? There is plenty of deceit and liability going on.... not one word of it has anything to do with any foreign laws, agencies, magistrates, courts, translators, or governments, etc. Nothing!!! It all has to do with Commonwealth's inability to DO THE RIGHT THING!!! So next time you post, maybe think about keeping it relevant or post individually on your own subject. Your comment has noting to do with my post. Take responsibility. Ha. What do you think I have been doing all this time???? Not "jump on the bandwagon", agin, did you read my post? I'm one of 43 families here in Colorado that they left in the lurch to begin with. There's no "jumping on" here. I'm one of the original members to be damaged here. Really, your comments are truly insulting...
I'm with you!
I'm with you!
PLEASE
You are right in one area. They do not have control over the foreign governments, BUT they do have control over what they do in relation to them. When they were getting NO referrals from Vietnam they continued to add more families. I began questioning them immediately about the seeming lack of referrals. I was logged in in May of 2007 and until May of 2008, they had TWO referrals and had taken in over 70 families. Is that appropriate? All of those families were required to pay the $1,000 fee to move to another program if they chose...that is $70,000. Where did that go? As a sidenote. I moved to the domestic program, so the foreign thing doesn't fly here. I was told these exact words, "The CAII domestic program is going strong and is in no danger of shutting down" This was told to me in May of 2008. Finally, CAII must take responsibility for their lack of Hague accreditation. There were a handful of agencies that were denied and CAII was one of them. They still make excuses for this and refuse to take responsibility for their actions. I am happy you worked with them when they were doing well....good for you. It is a shame that the 400 families that are affected by this have to feel personal shame for things out of their control. I did all I was asked. Did my paperwork. Kept copies. Paid fees. Found a new agency when my original local agency shut down from their partnership with CAII. Paid more fees. Trusted the people that were advising me and hoped I too would fulfill my dream of becoming a mother. No one really knows what happened, but if I took over $10,000 from a client and then just said, oh well. Sorry it didn't work. I would be sued...guaranteed. It really angers me that someone would even try to say that because they did business with an agency 6 years ago, that agency deserves any kind of break. YOU have no idea. None, cause you weren't involved or affected. If you would like to help the families get back the over 5 million dollars that CAII has said was used for services rendered (in one year mind you), jump on in. If not, don't blame the families cause you really don't get it.
Amen Sister!
Amen, Sister! I feel the same way.
By the way, I, and I'm sure you too feel that at one time Comonwealth was probably a really great agency to use. I understand that things changed dramatically in international adoption in the last few years. That is not the question here. What I have is a serious problem with is the way things have been handled in the last year. Somewhere along the way, they crossed the line and started making bad and then terrible decisions. It ahs been a long time since they made a decision to do the right thing. It's a shame.
Tamara
I am with you and I have you
I am with you and I have you in my database. I don't know if my lawyer is able to do anything either. I have kept everyone's email that said they are interested in the class action suit. Please let me know if there is anything I can do for you. I am all about getting even some of my money back. It is terrible what they did to you, me and (from what I heard) 400 other families. trishd3022@yahoo.com