Understanding Paternity Fraud

Many paternity testing companies are aware of issues of fraud and the way people doing such tests may try to cheat, alter the results, bribe test participants or even go as far as bribing the laboratory doing the analyses. What exactly is paternity fraud? When does it happen?

Some examples of cheaters and attempts at fraud:

A father demanded that the child, a daughter, he suspected was his take a paternity DNA test with him. The child was being maintained by a more affluent man who was providing support to mother and daughter; of course, the man believed this child to be his. The mother in question did not want the man she knew to be the biological father to have any legal rights over the child- it did not pay her, literally. Trying to alter the result of such as test is paternity fraud.

In order to alter the paternity test result and have it show the biological father as excluded from paternity she did the following:

• She submitted her sample as the mother’s sample- standard procedure in  paternity testing.
• She got her mother (the child’s maternal grandmother) to submit a swab which she passed off as belonging to the daughter

Once the test results of the paternity test arrived, the tested father and his daughter shared no genetic markers because the DNA analyzed was that of the maternal grandmother and not the daughter who should have been tested. This infringes severely on a father’s paternity rights.

Deceit, blatant treacherous deceit which is legally paternity fraud. Many men are currently maintaining children that are not theirs; often mothers are aware of have a strong suspicion that the wrong father is paying child support. This is clearly fraud- knowingly dumping the costs of child support and all the emotional baggage on a father who is unaware that he is not the biological father of the child he is supporting.

What are the implications and who are the victims of paternity fraud?

• The biological father who may have a child who he is not aware he has
• The non-biological father who may have bonded intensely with the child as any father would
• The child- deprived of a relationship with his or her true father
• Adverse effects on the family of the non-biological father who may have endured financial hardships to the detriment of his family to support another child (and perhaps the mother)  who is not his real child.

Unfortunately, many times, having the means to go to court is not an option for fathers. Suggesting infidelity to your wife or girlfriend is moreover is serious breach of trust. The issue is very complicated.

Thanks to DNA paternity testing many cases of paternity fraud have been solved. However, the emotional turmoil, money and time are all lost.