Defective goods and poor customer service

I bought cosmetics from Edgars, Mall of Africa and one of the products purchased was defective. I called the Mall of Africa branch on numerous occasions as well as emailed the mall of Africa branch regarding the defective goods, receiving no reply. After numerous calls the advice given was to take the goods to a Durban branch and all that was required was that the cardholder be present. So we went Pavilion and little to our knowledge Edgars was under renovation. We then went to red square to get some sort of help from edgars employees. The manager of red square said that we must take the item back to Edgars, Mall of Africa to return because we bought it from there. Customer service was extremely poor!!!! I cannot stress my point enough... how does a defective item from edgars become the customers problem and furthermore... edgars employees should be more knowledgeable about return of defective goods policy as well as refrain from being plain out lazy to help customers in situations as such. we are greatly disappointed.