Ripped off?

All of us families, being at the midpoint of the 2-week adoption slog, needed to do laundry.  Prior advice had told us to use Chinese laundry businesses, since the hotel charges would be much higher.  Our adoption agent arranged to have all of our laundry done by a private business.  So last night we dropped off our laundry in a single garbage bag at our agent's hotel room, where the laundry service collected everything, washed it all, and delivered it back to us tonight.  We'd been told by adoption veterans that comparable laundry services on Shamian Island, within walking distance of the White Swan hotel, would charge $10-20 for a typical family's clothes.  Our tab came to nearly $60, outragous in comparison, even when factoring in the delivery.    It got me to thinking about how the whole adoption process is so vulnerable to corruption.  No information was made available ahead of time as to how much the laundry would be, all us families just trusted our agent.  Maybe she's truly on the level and that's the best rate that we could get in this part of town.  Maybe she's right that the hotel would have charged 40% more.  Did any of us check?  I sure didn't.  But even so, what other choice did we have?  I haven't seen any other laundries around this hotel.  How do I know she doesn't have some sort of "deal" worked out with certain businesses, who give her a cut of the action in exchange for steering us dazed Westerners to their shops?  Same goes for the porcelain shop in Nanchang.  How can I know I'm really getting a decent deal?  The language barrier is huge and renders all of us pretty much at the mercy of our agents.   The kicker is, for adoptions, China has a reputation for honesty compared to countries like Russia.  And domestic adoptions in the States can be even worse if you run across manipulative birth mothers and crooked lawyers.   Bottom line: the world isn't kind to couples trying to give unwanted children good homes.  You're held upside down and shaken until nothing more comes out of your pockets.