Red flags

*edit: I needed police clearance + Apostille, birth certificate + Apostille*

I’m not saying they’re ****mers, because I didn’t actually follow through with payment, but I’m saying the red flags were rife: 1. From the get go, I was suspicious of the emails which were very unprofessional: a multitude of colours, fonts, sizes and contradictions. A quick look at their website will prove more spelling, punctuation and grammar mistakes. 2. As per their auto-generated message, I was told to call the Home Affairs call center to check on my birth certificate. I received confirmation that it was ready for collection, so I therefore requested that DocAssist remove the expedition of my birth certificate from my quote. 3. No quote was actually provided, just a figure of R3300 +- . When I requested a breakdown of what I was actually paying for (because I needed 3 different things done through DocAssist) I was told it’s not possible and they don’t provide breakdowns of quotes. I was then asked to email their “quotes” email address for more info. 4. I was also assigned a consultant called Orienta, but only liaised with a woman called Karin on an email address for Machelle. Too weird. 5. When I asked for the third time for a new quote I was ignored and had to phone. I reached Machelle, who was very rude and unprofessional. She accused me of making too many changes and said I opened too many email threads(2) (which I was actually advised to do). I was coerced into letting them continue with the expedition of my birth certificate because they didn’t believe me that it was ready for collection. Customer satisfaction didn’t seem to be a priority because I just seemed to be one big problem to them when asking questions about a very complicated and time-sensitive process. 6. Upon enquiring with other similar companies, I discovered that there were various formalities such as a “Power of Attorney” declaration which Doc Assist didn’t mention. Seems odd.

We seek their help because we’re in a hurry or don’t have the means to do it ourselves. Do better!