International Adoptions Recent News

The recent news regarding Russian adoptions comes as no surprise.
For the past three years, as a single woman, I have been looking into the prospect of adopting. If there was a word to describe it at this point, I would say it is a "minefield".
The first genuine horror story about international adoption follows.
At a reception at The British Embassy several years ago, one of the guests, (not a diplomat or British official, for the curious), told me her story. After going through the screening process, investing more than $ 30K, the adoption was a fraud.
The monies were lost. This happened even with recommended legal advice here in DC.
What goes on in the prospective adoptee's home country can be a mystery. After this
nightmare, the couple decided to re-group and go forward. They were able to re-invest (I use the word "invest" in respect as we are talking about children here, not commodities), with a different agency, lawyer, etc. were able to successfully adopt a Russian daughter. It struck me at the time, how dedicated this couple was- to be able to start all over with the process despite their initial financial and emotional loss.
Not long after, I started doing my own research on adoption in general, then international adoption specifically. It wasn't more than a few months into the process, during internet research, I found a promising agency. After going through photos of young children, I came upon one little girl who looked like she came straight out of one of my own family albums. We even had the same birthday. She was less than two years old, and was listed with an adoption agancy in one of the former Soviet countries.
The U.S. agency who sponsored the "ads" was a kind of "umbrella" agency, listing a variety of foreign adoption agencies.
Within a day of viewing the (above mentioned) listing, I emailed an inquiry as instructed on the site. It was not even 48 hours before I received an email response directing me to send $ 4k right away as the first of several large deposits.
It did not seem legitimate, as there was no letterhead or standard business letter format.
After having doubts, I contacted by email the U.S. listing agency.
My request to them was to check out the child's profile: age, health, personal history and if the foreign agency was indeed legitimate.
It did not take the U.S. agency more than a week to relay information to me.
Their news was disheartening: not only was their fraud involved, the child in question has been "adopted out" several times over. The U.S. agency declined to go into detail in writing, but they did write via email to advise me they had banned that foreign agency from their site and were taking steps to expose the fraud to the proper authorities.

Since that experience, I have seen the costs quoted for adoption to increase despite the U.S. economic downturn. The real cost of adoption now is closer to $50k, and that is without the cost of the home study, foreign travel, etc. Also the age restrictions are not in keeping with real life expectancies in the U.S.
It seems adoption has become out-of-reach financially for many would-be parent(s).
It is a shame, since the orphaned children are the ones who really lose out.