Chapter 8:
ODJFS: Doing Nothing Every Time
Before Janet received the joyous news about her unexpected Christmas gift, she followed our advice. We told her to contact Linda Saridakis at the ODJFS in writing, providing documentation about her experience with BBAS. Janet sent a hard copy of the information to Saridakis on Dec. 17, 2004.
Unfortunately, Janet she also cc’ed her email to Daniel & Elizabeth Case. In retrospect, this was an unwise thing to do.
She provided the posts to the Yahoo! Georgian and Russian groups from the BBAS clients who had changed countries. She provided the false referrals Slater had sent her, a copy of her Azerbaijan contract and emails from Hubbard and Slater.
Janet wrote us the following email on Dec. 17 describing her conversation with Linda Saridakis. This happened on the same day Saridakis received her emailed information.
I spoke with Linda. I emailed the letter to her and mailed the hardcopy today. We spoke briefly on the phone and I gave her
a shortened version of my experience with BBAS. She stated she will sit down with Denise to discuss the material I sent to her.
BUT....she stated that the only thing she can do is lodge the complaint......there is nothing she can do from a licensing point
of view. She stated I should complain to the Ohio Better Business Bureau and to the Attorney General in Ohio. She gave me
the website address for the atty general.....
www.ag.state.oh.us. I tried numerous times to file a complaint within this site but can't get past putting the BBAS address in......
for some reason I can not advance to any screens beyond that. Also, I noted that you can check to see if a complaint has
been filed and there was ONE (1) complaint...
Linda has my phone number and I believe she will be following up with me. The hardcopies will arrive to her mon/tues
am of christmas week.....
Since when was the Better Business Bureau a regulatory agency? Had they gone off the deep end in Columbus and Cleveland? Why didn’t they DO SOMETHING to help complainants out?
Janet next went to the AG’s website and filed her complaint online. She received the following them:
December 21, 2004
Janet Ostrander
[address]
Re: Building Blocks Adoption Service
Complaint #: 270881
Dear Mr./Ms. Ostrander:
We received your complaint and carefully reviewed its contents. In an effort to allow industries
the opportunity to maintain high standards the Ohio Attorney General's office has made special
arrangements with specific trade organizations for the mediation of selected consumer complaints.
The supplier about whom you complained is monitored by such an organization who could offer
expert advice regarding this dispute. Therefore, your complaint qualifies for this added benefit
and will be forwarded immediately to the organization listed below:
Better Business Bureau
222 W. Market Street
Akron, OH 44303-2111
We are pleased to be able to offer you this specialized service. It is our hope that your dispute
will be resolved to your satisfaction. If your complaint is not resolved to your satisfaction you
still have the option to contact our office to determine if we can assist you further
Thank you for allowing us this opportunity to assist you. Please do not hesitate to contact us
in the future with your consumer sales transaction concerns.
Very truly yours,
JIM PETRO
Attorney General
Wasn’t this great! Even the office of the attorney general of Ohio sent her to ... the Akron Better Business Bureau! Gosh darnit! That Akron BBB really was a regulatory powerhouse! Better Business Bureaus must be really good at regulating adoption agencies – especially adoption agencies who are dues-paying members of their organizations.
As she instructed to do by two toothless, useless “regulatory” Ohio entities, Janet filed a complaint with the Akron Better Business Bureau. On a lighter note, she did receive more feedback from them than either the ODJFS or the Attorney General’s Office. But let’s get real. The Akron BBB has no regulatory authority. The only thing they can do is have a record of unsatisfactory complaints against an agency. THEY CANNOT SHUT THE AGENCY DOWN, nor can they obtain a refund for a client. Compliance with them is strictly voluntary.
Is this any way to hold Building Blocks accountable in the State of Ohio? By the ODJFS shirking its duties, not enforcing laws and continuing to turn a blind eye to complaints? As many complaints as BBAS has had since 1999? Surely the ODJFS needs to be upbraided for this at long last.
We don’t know what’s going on at the ODJFS, but we can tell you something. They sure as hell aren’t doing their jobs. Something has happened in Ohio. We think the continual complaints brought against BBAS clients has something to do with their refusal to shut this agency down. Turn a blind eye and don’t help people and maybe they’ll go away.
Linda Saridakis, just barely did her job. She did, as promised, visit Hubbard at the Fortress Marco Law Firm to review the file. Again - how many more examples can we show you – Denise lied her way out of it. Even Janet’s hard copy information was not enough for Saridakis to nail them (which it really should have been). How hard is it to call Denise Hubbard and Kelly Carter-Hubbard on their deliberate lies?
Of course, the real culprit behind the fiasco was Lee Slater. She was the one providing misleading misinformation to both Denise Hubbard and Kelly Carter-Hubbard. Yet Denise could have stepped away from Slater and told Janet straight up what Slater was doing was wrong, perhaps illegal. It would have saved Janet Ostrander many months of aggravation, no referrals and lost hopes (Then again, perhaps Denise needed to refine her techniques for misleading and stringing along clients and figured she could learn something from Lee).
How many scruples does Denise Hubbard have anymore. How much of her soul is now occupied by the vice of greed?
On Jan. 7, 2005 after the holidays with Lance, Janet emailed Linda Saridakis regarding her complaint. She had not heard anything from Linda since she’d originally spoken with her. No refund check had been sent from the agency. In her email, Janet wrote she had contacted both the Akron BBB and the AG’s office. She informed Saridakis her attorney was also hard at work on the case.
On Jan. 17 we received the following email from Janet Ostrander, explaining how her follow-up with Linda Saridakis had gone. To put it mildly, it hadn’t. Janet was beyond livid. She was seething.
From: Janet Ostrander
To: Daniel & Elizabeth Case
Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2005 11:55 AM
Subject: Denise did it again!!!!!! I"M SO MAD!
Oh am I so mad. Linda Saradakis called me today - only after I left her an email which questioned the
complaint I made and if she followed up on it.
Denise did her usual. We gave her options and gave her referrals. When I told Linda that they never gave
any "true and official referrals" I was told that they did give me referrals for "PRIVATE ADOPTIONS" in the
regions in which I was in....as these regions were NOT CLOSED for private adoption. When I tried to explain
I was rudely interuppted. She then stated she did not see anything wrong with the [Yahoo! Georgian and
Russian] post information - and I rebatted to her that this was crucial in showing that the adoptions were
closed. Her emphasis again was that private adoptions were available. And, here's the kicker........
blows me away to pieces.
Linda says.....you DID adopt a boy didn't you? ( I was speechless for a moment) and she adds...from what
I am told is that you only wanted a girl. ) She repeated it again about my adopting a boy. I said......" does it
matter if I have adopted or haven't adopted? The bottom line is that Building Blocks Adoption did not adopt
this child to me." I then said, by the way....who told you I adopted......she never really answered but left
me with the thought that BBAS used the pic during christmas against me showing that I adopted a child
from a different agency etc, like I somehow violated the contract by doing so........ URGHH
I brought up the fact that they "referred" me children that were not VIABLE. LInda changed it and said, they
were offering you infants that were born........... UGHHH
She then stated that BBAS did offer to refund some monies to me. I did tell her that that has not happened
yet. All she said was that Building blocks didnt do anything wrong, didnt do anything to jeopardize their
licensure. blah blah blah. So Linda sugests that I call my attorney so he can work things out in terms of
a monetary refund (the limited amount BBAS was going to refund)
all I can say is URRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
That line of Linda’s – you did adopt a boy, didn’t you? - was the exact terminology she used on Vickie Anderson when she spoke with Saridakis. Linda repeatedly asked Vickie over and over again “They did adopt the girl, right?”
This may come as a real shock, but yeah Janet did adopt a boy – BUT NOT WITH BUILDING BLOCKS. BUILDING BLOCKS DID NOT FULFILL THEIR CONTRACTUAL AGREEMENT for Azerbaijan or the Republic of Georgia. Lance’s adoption was a PRIVATE DOMESTIC ADOPTION in her own state, not an international adoption. Building Blocks does not do domestic placements in either Janet’s home state, Ohio or anywhere else in the United States. Certainly Saridakis wasn’t that stupid.
Saridakis seems confused, or refuses to see the obvious. Georgia was closed for international adoption. The referrals for the boy and the girl were illegal at the best. It doesn’t matter in the slightest that they were born ... they weren’t remotely legally adoptable! And what of private adoptions? Since when was Georgia open for private adoptions? It was not even open for placing children from orphanages!
Linda Saridakis and the organization she worked for, didn’t get it and did not help Janet Ostrander. We find nothing positive in the way she handled this complaint, nor can we find any positives in the way she handled the Anderson’s complaint. We can see now complaints regarding Building Blocks Adoption Service were not correctly, and to our minds, not taken seriously.
With laws and overseers like this, no wonder an immoral piece of work like Denise Hubbard is allowed to operate in the State of Ohio. Carte blanche for mid level child pimps! The ODJFS doesn’t care, so why should the agency? You’re doomed if you try to complain and seek remedy.
After they spoke, Janet sent Saridakis the following. We give her credit for doing so:
From: Janet Ostrander
Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2005 10:26 PM
Subject: BBAS
Dear Linda.....After our conversation today I am hoping that you will send me a written conclusion of your
contact with Building Blocks Adoption, Inc and a written plan of action for Denise Hubbard to comply with.
You were definately snowed in by Denise. I wish I would have warned you about her but its important for
people to see how Denise treats you over time. Denise will continue to conduct herself with other prospective
parent(s) in the manner in which she treated myself. For 14 months I waited and never got a true and official
referral from BBAS. It's plain as day itself that once I was no longer within the clutches of the BBAS grasp I
found an honest and caring adoption agency that did exactly what they represented themselves as.....an adoption
agency. Yes, they really do help prospective parents adopt a child within a quick and timely manner. There was
no stringing along as BBAS is famous for doing. If you reread all the info that I sent you .... you will discover that my
contract with Denise Hubbard and BBAS was not for a private adoption......it was for an international adoption.
So, please in the future when the next person comes along and complains about the ethics and workings of BBAS.....
please do listen.....what they will tell you is truth. There is much to say about the old saying "actions speak louder than
words."
As always I remain,
Janet Ostrander
Janet was right. Her contract did not say private adoption. It was an international adoption, country of Azerbaijan.
Something sank in, because Linda Saridakis responded telling her how to obtain a copy of her complaint:
From: "LINDA SARIDAKIS" <SARIDL@odjfs.state.oh.us>
To: Janet Ostrander
Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2005 8:02 AM
Subject: Re: BBAS
Dear Janet,
I certainly understand your concerns and the many issues surrounding adoptions. I am glad that you were able tofind an adoption agency that met your needs. If you would like a copy of the disposition report you must make a records
request to our main office. You can call 1-866-635-3748 and select option 2 and then extention 2.
Ohio Department of Job and Family Services
Foster Care Licensing Section
255 East Main Street-3rd Floor
Columbus, Ohio 43215
Please allow a few weeks prior to making this request. The report has to be written, reviewed and then sent to our central office.
Thank you for making the department of aware of your concerns.
Sincerely,
Linda Saridakis
ODJFS
(216) 787-3611
FAX (216) 787-3299
We told Janet to try and obtain a copy of her complaint for the ODJFS was no longer supplying us with them. That is another story, but for now, suffice it to say, we now fully believe the ODJFS has been given the directive to stonewall us on all levels, especially inquiries under Ohio’s open-records laws (which up till now have been very helpful). We do not know who this came down from, but somebody in Ohio government is very upset with what is going up on this website.
The only “copy” Janet received was a one page report stating Linda had visited BBAS and that no violations had occurred. It was not the full report which the ODJFS had given to clients in the past.
This was the extent of how the State of Ohio “helped” Janet Ostrander obtain her refund from BBAS.
ODJFS truly are a useless, toothless, uncaring organization.