Rental deposit still NOT returned. After a month! !

This is my last resort. I returned a rented car at AVIS rental Cape Town Airport on the 13th Dec 2023, I have been struggling since, for a good FOUR weeks, for my deposit to be returned. AVIS Cape Town was very quick to deduct their costs but did not return the deposit money that they were holding against my wife's card. I have been sending emails everyday back and forth for the past three weeks, everyday the customer service response is "the funds will clear after 48 hours" but after 48 hours nothing, still PENDING. This is frustrating, unfair, unprofessional and totally unacceptable, not even once did the customer service agents try to contact me about the delays. R6000 is a lot of money and it is January now, I need the money for my kids school fees :-( I am a long time client of AVIS but I will not be using AVIS rental ever again in my life. I advise everyone to stay away from AVIS rental if they care about their hard earned deposit money