Legalwise nothing more than a waste of time and money.

It started off very well. I was arrested on 15 June 2020, on the 17th I was finally allowed to contact legalwise to arrange a lawyer for my case. On the 18th I appeared in Bluedowns court for my first appearance. Bail hearing was postponed till the 3rd July 2020. Firstly I was a first time offender, and though I was charged with a schedule 6 offense, here are some facts to show just how bad the lawyer they appointed me was. Three of us were arrested and appeared in the court the same day, different cases, 2 of us were scheduled 6 offenses the, I was the only first time offender. The other schedule 6 offender used a Legal Aid lawyer and got bail. I was remanded for 15 days for my bail hearing. At the prison, of the 28 people in the cell with me 14 had schedule 5 or 6 charges against them, only one other person was a first time offender. 12 used legal aid only two of us had lawyers. 8 the others had their bail hearings within 7 days, the other 3 within 10 days. I was the only sucker that had to wait 15 days. 03 August 2020, get to court, the legalwise appointed lawyer comes to me: "bad news they lost your case file", "more bad news, I was unable to contact your mother for bail." (three weeks and she could not contact my mother who is home every night.....) "more bad news, the senior prosecutor is not budging and I doubt we will get bail" No sooner were these words out her mouth and another lawyer appeared asking for me, turns out (due to me not being allowed any outside contact and my legalwise lawyer being to lazy to contact my family) my family had done some investigating and hired a lawyer to represent me. In under an hour he had gotten my offense dropped from scheduled 6 to a 5, and arranged bail of R2000. Legalwise claims they will use a lawyer that is a specialist in the field, if this is true please explain why their lawyer was unable to do in three weeks what this lawyer did in under an hour? When the new lawyer appeared he and their lawyer went of to discuss the situation, and agreed that he would handle the case. When their lawyer returned to tell me this one of the other prisoners said "its hard to tell who is more relieved you or her" It was plain as day their lawyer was totally out of her depth with this case and definitely NOT a specialist as claimed by them. Then the real NIGHTMARE started, and my respect for this firm (which started off VERY HIGH) was plunged to below 0.

On Monday 05/07/2020 I got home to find an email from legalwise addressed to me and the lawyer they had appointed, requesting my ID, which I sent and notified them that I intended to change lawyers and requested the proper documents (NO RESPONSE) 13/07/2020 same as above but this time they were requesting my spouses/ partners ID, I am single and this is clearly stated on my policy. But I responded and sent my ID and again requested to change lawyers. (NO RESPONSE) 22/07/2020 I phoned the legalwise contact center to follow up on the claim, I was told that they would have the person working with it (Nombasa) phone me a bit later. (NO RESPONSE) 24/07/2020 I sent another e-mail to *** asking what was going on. Later that day I also phoned to follow up and was told a manager would phone me back. (NO RESPONSE to either) 27/07/2020, now getting frustrated and concerned, I contacted their head office who put me through to Connie (yes the very same Connie who responds to the Hello Peter complaints) She assured me she would get to the bottom of it and sort it out. She asked me to send a copy of the e-mail I sent to legalwise. I sent this through the same day at 11:28, and stressed the urgency of the matter. Later the same day at 16:03 she sent a confirmation e-mail back to me. 28/07/2020 At 16:22 Connie finally sent the query on to Thuli to get feedback, yes after stressing how urgent the matter is, and convincing me that she would sort it out ASAP, Connie sat with my complaint and did nothing for an entire day and a half. 29/07/2020 I contacted their customer care department and asked to speak to Connie to follow up, I was told they could not transfer me to her but would have her contact me. (NO RESPONSE) LEGALWISE CLAIMS and I quote from their membership agreement " 3. COMMUNICATING WITH YOU d) If any Member communicates with Us about his/her Benefit claim, We will respond to that Member. WHAT UTTER *******, they do not respond as can been seen above. I have 20 days before my trial starts and it is clear that the only way I will be ready for the trial is if I appoint the lawyer and pay him myself and then sue legalwise for breach of contract. I have made every possible attempt to obtain the requested paperwork and have my lawyer approved by them, and in response they have done nothing but ignore me. To make matter worse I have a heart condition and the stress of this case is affecting my health very severely, and now I have to deal with the added stress of fighting with legalwise and knowing that, thanks to them 50% of the time I had available to prepare for this serious case is gone and nothing has been done.