Help Megan and Mark Overcome Stolen Surrogacy Funds

Becky Culbreth is organizing this fundraiser.

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Hi, I’m Megan’s friend Becky and I’ve started this GoFundMe to help Megan and Mark overcome the loss of their stolen surrogacy funds. This is not the way they wanted to share their happy news with everyone but circumstances have forced their hand. Megan and Mark are expecting a baby boy this November.

In June, the company managing their escrow account to coordinate payments to the surrogate, notified them that June payments would be delayed due to some fraudulent ACH withdrawals. A week later, the company emailed that they were shutting down operations. Mark and Megan had no way to access the $50,000 left in the account as it was fully managed by SEAM for the sake of Mark and Megan and their surrogate. Mark and Megan used SEAM for their first journey without issue.

Even with no money, there is a baby coming in November. Mark and Megan have a contract with their surrogate for compensation and expenses, not to mention all medical expenses for the surrogate and baby too. Even with the funds being stolen, they are still obligated to cover all these costs. Mark is working on selling items from around the house and Megan is attempting to get extra hours at work, but they will still fall short. To fund this journey, they had taken out a 401K loan and tapped into their HELOC and have no access to additional funds. I want to support them in every way I can and this is the first thing I could think of. For their first and second journeys, they’ve received help from family, now they’re needing help from friends.

As far as the situation with SEAM. The owner Dominique Side has allegedly stolen an estimated $16 Million from intended parents trying to build their families. There is a Facebook group for the families that have been affected with over 800 members. It’s not only American families either, there are families from France, Taiwan, Italy, Australia and more being affected. The FBI is investigating but moving very slowly. Dominique Side used all of these families' funds to provide her with a luxurious lifestyle of traveling abroad, purchasing vehicles, real estate, and luxury goods. Dominique used her escrow company to fund her other companies in vegan clothing, vegan luxury lifestyle coaching, a music studio and a rap career under the moniker Dom. You can find some news coverage below if you'd like to hear more about the situation.

Please give if you’re able or please share on your social media to help get this news out there.