Unprocessed Refund from Dis-Chem/Baby City for Baby Formula

I am extremely frustrated of the pathetic/poor service I have received from Dis-Chem/Baby City. I had purchased baby formula online on the 29/02/2024- Thursday. I had then been informed that there is no stock of Novalac IT2 and that I will be refunded on Thursday afternoon.

I had then then expressed to the lady who called me on Thursday that I needed an immediate refund as my 7 month old baby has run out of formula and I need to come up with a plan B to get an alternative formula. It has now been 5 days and my money has not been refunded. I had called and queried my refund of which i had been informed by Portia that my money was not even scheduled for a refund which is extremely disappointing. My call was the transferred to numerous departments until a guy by the name of Willem from support had processed the refund and informs me that it will be done in 3-10 working days. I have been a loyal customer spending at least R5000.00 a month on essential items from Dis-Chem and to receive this kind of service and consideration as a customer has proven that customers do not matter.

When we make a purchase we are obligated to pay immediately in order to receive our required essential items. However when we require a refund for a stock item that they do not have we are then told to wait 7-14 or 3-10 working days for our money.

This has put me into into financial difficulty of where I had to borrow money on interest in order to provide formula for my baby. This has also costed me time of work of which was unpaid to me and additional cost on transport to arrange finance to ensure my baby does not go hungry. Dis-Chem/Baby City has proven to have no empathy or consideration for their customers especially after explaining that it is formula for my 7 month old baby. I have decided to never purchase from any Dis-Chem affiliated store after this incident. I have also decided to take this further up and ensure it never happens to another customer again where their baby goes hungry. Should this be a strong enough case to get the law involved just so that it changes a customers waiting period for their refunds on out of stock items then so be it!