ABSA theft from Client!

My wife paid money (R10 000), over the festive season, into a non-existing account from ABSA to Standard Bank. She realised this immediately, phoned the bank and the consultant of ABSA told her to wait 10 working days as it will just automatically be reversed and paid back to her. Needless to say, this never happened. After numerous follow ups, visits to the bank itself and reporting it to the highest level of the customer complaint procedure (CCP) of ABSA, she was blatantly told to get a lawyer and to follow the legal process to get her money back from Standard Bank. ABSA even went as far to give her a so-called name of the person who's account it is at Standard Bank! When we contacted Standard Bank, they confirmed that bank account doesn't exist and said that if it did, they were not allowed to give out the name of the account holder. Their consultant told us to take the matter to the banking ombudsman which we subsequently did. The ombudsman's last response to us was that it will take at least 4 months for the issue to be addressed from their side. I find this totally unacceptable that a banking institution can simply "buff" you off like this. Especially since my wife has been a client of ABSA the past 36 years! So much for customer satisfaction and pleasing the client! I would appreciate any advice from anyone in the know on what to do! To us it is clear that the money must sit somewhere in ABSAs system, they are just not concerned to give it back and would rather their clients follow costly legal routes to solve a simple matter!