Ty Lawrence Found Her Daughter’s Photo on a TikTok Account Posing as an Adoption Agency, With Strangers in the Comments Asking What She Would Cost

The TikTok account called Orphanage Adoption Services showed Ty Lawrence a photo of her own daughter, posted as if the baby were up for adoption. According to Atlanta Black Star, the photo was allegedly taken from one of Lawrence’s public social media profiles. Below it, strangers were asking how to start “paperwork” and how much the child would cost.

The Mom Who Recognized Her Daughter

Lawrence put what she found in plain words for her followers. She wrote that people were asking how they could get her daughter and start “paperwork” and how much she was, according to Atlanta Black Star.

The outlet described the post as advertising her baby girl as up for adoption, using a photo that the account allegedly took from one of her public profiles.

On Nov. 9, she asked others to report the account. Atlanta Black Star reported that the account then switched to private and blocked her. By Nov. 10, it had gone dark, and Lawrence posted an update saying the account had been deleted or its videos removed.

Her posts about the account passed 2 million views, the outlet reported. Her advice to other parents, as the outlet quoted her, was to be careful posting children online. Atlanta Black Star said it had contacted her for comment and had not heard back when it published.

The Account and the Commenters

The account used the handle @genuineadoptionservices and the display name Orphanage Adoption Services, the outlet reported. It claimed to be licensed in Missouri and to have more than 41,000 likes. Those claims are the account’s own, and the report does not say they were verified.

The account reportedly targeted women who had miscarriages or infertility, promising newborns. A screenshot Lawrence shared showed eight videos of tiny newborns allegedly up for adoption.

The report does not say the account listed a price, or that anyone paid it. Commenters on her daughter’s photo asked how to start the process and how much the child was. Lawrence’s warning to other parents, posted in the days that followed, is what is what the outlet’s report is built on.

The State Department’s guidance on adoption scams flags two warning signs that echo what Lawrence described: private individuals offering to match families with a child, and requests to send money to an individual. That guidance covers intercountry adoption, so it is a parallel, not a ruling on this account.

What TikTok’s Rules Say About Accounts Like This

Nothing in the public record yet shows what the platform itself did, and the removal of the page does not explain who made the call. The Atlanta Black Star report does not say TikTok responded, and it does not say who took the account down. It says only that the page is gone.

TikTok’s Community Guidelines address this kind of behavior under spam and deceptive accounts. They prohibit accounts that pose as another real person or entity, and accounts presenting as a person or entity that does not exist. Violators face a ban, and the company says it may also ban new accounts created to get around one.

Parody and fan accounts are allowed only if the account name discloses them. The same page also keeps the likeness of a young person out of synthetic media. Whether this account broke any of those rules is a question for TikTok to answer, and the company’s response was not part of the report.

Protecting Children’s Photos and Where to Report

The American Academy of Pediatrics offers a short guide to sharing photos of children. It advises keeping a profile private, limiting followers to people a parent knows and trusts, sharing with a select group rather than the public, removing location details and geotags, limiting who can send messages or tag a parent, and avoiding school names, logos and routines. It also notes that others can use artificial intelligence to alter shared photos, and that no approach makes sharing completely safe. Before posting, the academy suggests asking why a photo is being shared, whether the same post would be welcome about the parent, and whether the child could be embarrassed by it now or later. It also suggests shooting from a distance or blurring a face, and reviewing past posts to delete what no longer needs to be public.

Atlanta Black Star added context on that last point. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s CyberTipline, it reported, saw reports tied to generative AI rise from 4,700 in 2023 to more than 400,000 in 2025.

For reporting, the CyberTipline is the central system for reporting online crimes against children. It takes reports from the public at report.cybertip.org or 1-800-843-5678, around the clock. A Federal Trade Commission consumer alert from October 2026 lays out steps for explicit images of a child, which include reporting to the platform, using NCMEC’s Take It Down service and contacting the FBI. The alert also says the Take It Down Act requires covered platforms to give parents an easy way to ask for removal of an explicit image of a child, and that a platform that does not act within 48 hours can be reported to the FTC. That alert is about explicit images, which this case, as reported, did not involve.

For a fake business or a request for money, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center takes reports of internet-enabled fraud and scams, and the State Department guidance lists it as a place to file adoption-scam complaints. Lawrence’s own call, on Nov. 9, was simpler: she asked other users to report the account on TikTok.

Get stories like this by email. Sign up for The Parent Diaries Letter.

This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.

Image: Acabashi – CC BY-SA 4.0/Wikimedia Commons