Unprofessional poor service
This company was engaged as executors to an estate with funds and beneficiaries in South Africa and other countries. At the beginning of the process everything looked professional and promising with a good initial introduction. That initial introduction turned out to be just a standard letter with promises that would remain unfulfilled.
The person put in charge of the estate at Sentinel proved on several occasions incapable of providing status reports or fulfilling agreed promises regarding the supply of information.
It also became clear early on that once they were engaged with contracts signed there was no one to oversee them and hold them accountable. Be warned anyone else thinking of using this company. So whether they do a good job or bad it will not affect how much they get paid and as a result this explains the lackadaisical attitude to everything.
On several occasions after no news or updates from Sentinel a prod resulted in a sudden flurry of activity with what appeared to be the pretence that they were about to do something. They have ZERO project management knowledge or understanding if they do they have not shown it on this project and have no way of reporting on progress that would have given the stake holders confidence that everything was in hand and under control.
In some cases they made decisions without consultation where there were clearly cheaper options to get the problem solved that they could have been made aware of if they had discussed it before hand. But its not their money they were spending so why would they care.
The name of their company is Sentinel International Trust. International? They turned out to be as international as anyone with a web browser and a search engine to ask questions of. The international part of the problem was just passed over to another company with nothing to hold that new company accountable and no way to monitor their progress.
There is a slogan on their website, a quote from their CEO "making the complex simple". This is not the case they appeared to be making it up as they went along and appeared to be winging it from shortly after they were engaged in the process. Anything complex they appeared to hand over to someone else at beneficiarys expense. It was a big mistake appointing this company to manage this process.
On numerous occasions over the last year Sentinel were asked to provide reports updates and status updates the result was minimal and very poorly presented if anything was provided at all so they had plenty of opportunity to make amends but were not capable of doing so. An attempt to escalate the issue was not taken seriously and a very poor response from Francois manager who did not appear to understand or address the issues that inexperienced. So not surprising no improvement has been noticed since escalation. A shocking experience!