Mid-week bonus: The fiasco behind SurroConnections and Megan Hall Greenberg

We wanted to take a few minutes out of your week to acknowledge the awful experience IP's and surrogates alike are dealing with during the collapse (and possible fraud) of SurroConnections.

Transcript

David: 0:00

Okay, Gavin, we're doing something a little bit different. We have a little bit of a mini bonus thing happening this Friday, December 12th. I love that.

Gavin: 0:08

Yeah, I'm always here for a Friday afternoon bonus.

David: 0:11

It is. It is not great news. I just felt like we needed to acknowledge the fact that there was some kind of drama happening in the surrogacy space that we are tangentially connected to in a weird way. So for those listeners out there who don't know, there is a that was never uh may I just say it never fails to make me giggle when you say for all our listener out there.

Gavin: 0:34

I've it's always sorry, that was very self-referential. Sorry, I just broke your flow and which you love so much. But hey, it's a Friday bonus.

David: 0:42

Like hey, it feels really good to start a show and get the momentum going, especially about a very serious topic. So there is uh a circusy company called Ciro Connections, and we had the uh kind of owner and CEO or whatever on the show, Megan Hall Greenberg. Now, she and her company um are having a little bit of a moment right now, and they're having a moment. They're having a moment. And so, just quickly to recap for our listener, um, we had her on the show. She had this show, this uh agency called Ciro Connections, where she would, you know, she has IPs and she has surrogates and she's kind of the agency to connect them all. And there's a lot of agencies like this. Well, I heard that the company folded and she sent out this email. And the email was basically like, hey, we ran out of money. We have no money to continue operations, or to refund you, or to refund you. We have a hundred thousand dollar bond with the state. If you want to sue us, go ahead. That's all that we have. Love, Megan Hall Greenberg. And so I was like, oh shit, this is dramatic. Uh-huh. And then I saw men having babies jump in and say, Hey, we're aware of what's happening. Um, we are here to support you. We have these, maybe we're gonna move some money here to help people. And basically, what seems to have happened allegedly, I have to say that because people will come for us. It seems her and her partner had this agency, they collected a ton of money, and then they fucking bounced and they stole about four million dollars. And this seems to be what's happening. Is that what your take is?

Gavin: 2:07

Uh, absolutely. And I appreciate you going far enough to say it it it's a little, it's it is an unregulated business. I think that was one of my main takeaways was from the New York Times article, which let the record show. I was like, you sent me in New York Times article. I know.

David: 2:24

I sent it to Gavin. It's like cats are dogs, dogs are cats.

Gavin: 2:26

I you always say to me, I don't have a uh uh a subscription. And I'm like, this needs to be on your Christmas. You know what? You know what, David? I'm getting no, it's way too much money. Oh my god, Gavin, get to the point. It's an unregulated business, and you're you there are risks being taken amongst the many levels of risks that I think I've said many times, you kind of think you are in charge and therefore in control, and you can control all the things. And so therefore, it makes you feel like you're going bonkers when you don't have full control over how your embryo comes out, what the gender is of the kid, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Well, this is another level of not having control. And, you know, this is I'm undoubtedly going to have repercussions and bring some more regulation to an industry that is unregulated. And that won't necessarily be a bad thing. But it looks like Megan has done some bad things.

David: 3:16

But it but the powerlessness and the non-control we should have should be do my embryos make the grade? Is the transfer like the things that are kind of like let go and let God? Thank you, Carrie Underwood. It shouldn't be that the company that I have given money to, because I am a I am an I am an aspiring parent, I'm an intended parent, and or the surrogates, I am gonna I am risking my life and my body to create life for these these people. And ergo, I have agreed on X amount of dollars that that money gets stolen from us. That is something we should not. So, anyway, again, allegedly, um, I want to point out that we did have her on our show last year. Um, obviously, we had no idea this was happening. Um, and I did reach out to her and I said, Hey, I know all this stuff is going on. Do you want to come on Gate Yorks and say your side of the story? LOL, right? The the email did bounce back. Um, everything is shut down over there. So I know there's there's no way. But I just I told Gavin, I texted him earlier this morning, I said, we need to just say that we know about this. Yeah, and we need to say this is super fucked up. And there's a lot of surrogates and intended parents who are really drowning right now because of this this alleged woman stealing four million dollars from these people. And and that's that. Yeah, I mean, I I don't have a solution. We're this this episode is not entirely funny, and there's not really a solution here, but we are aware of it. It probably affects a lot of our listener. And if you're one of those people and you want to reach out to us and talk to us about what you have experienced, please do. Uh we're all for that. Yeah, I I I just I feel fucking sick because Gavin, you and I both did surrogacy, and we did not have our money embezzled or stolen from us, and it was still terrifying and scary and stressful and all of the things. Yeah, but we didn't have 60, 80, 100,000,$200,000 stolen from us. Some of these people are pregnant now, they're in the middle of the amazing.

Gavin: 5:13

Yeah, that article was actually really fascinating. Some people do in two weeks, and some people uh only uh only owed five figures, but undoubtedly there's people out there with six figures, and that's um that's that's a lot. So we we our hearts go out to you, listener, and uh we're here. Uh maybe this can be a discussion to be um in the wise words of podcaster extraordinaire Gavin Lodge likes to say let's make the world a better place.

David: 5:39

So how did you circle this entire episode back to you?

Gavin: 5:44

Watch my hair flip here on the podcast.

David: 5:47

We love you. Bye, guys. See you next Wednesday. Bye bye.