BOOK DIRECT UNABLE TO REFUND R450.00!!!

On 17 January I received an invite from Book Direct (yet again) to join them for an annual fee of R450. I was then informed by the General Manager Cobus that I had already subscribed in June 2022 and I therefore did not need to subscribe again. Which meant that I had paid R450 for nothing and I requested on 20 January for them to refund the money to me and provided them with my banking details. Cobus responded as follows: "Yes, because you were already listed with us, there is no reason to pay the additional R450. I notified accounts to do the refund. This usually takes approx. 7 business days as we are using an online payment gateway and have to request the money to be sent." It has been more than a month now, and still no sign of a refund.

I again queried the refund on 14 February, but did not receive any response, so on 16 February I sent a reminder and was given the following explanation by Cobus: "I escalated the matter to the owners of Book Direct to get everything sorted out as the accounts department is not getting back to me with an answer or any reason why the refund has not been made. The owners are now in a meeting with the accountants and should have an answer for me by this afternoon. I can guarantee that we will definitely send you the refund. We will not run away with any of the money. We are just sorting out this internal issue with the accountants so that we can process the refund."

It's now 3 working days later and Cobus has not yet come back to me as he promised. If it were an amount of R450 THOUSAND, I could understand a meeting with the owners and the auditors, but for an amount of R450.00 this is beyond ridiculous. If they are unable to deal with such a simple thing as a basic refund, I do not want to do business with them, because their admin is USELESS.