Overbooking, is that even legal?

Worst experience with FlySafair. Flights were booked for 6h55, got to the check-in gates at 6h20 and was told that I had missed my flight. I then needed to buy two standby tickets for my husband and I. We waited ALL day and never got a flight. We then flew with Lift, best airline ever!

Upon waiting for a standby flight, on of the FlySafair attendants said I should have come straight to her and she would have checked my luggage in and I would not have missed my flight. She said that they overbook their flights so they look for ANY REASON to have people missing their flights. Mind you I had checked in online and got the the check-in counter at 6h20- 35 minutes before our flight. All we needed to do was drop our luggage and run to the gates. What I fail to understand is that when you are on a standby flight, you need to wait for the boarding gates to close, in order to check if there are any seats available, yet cannot let a paying passenger on who checks their luggage in 35 minutes before the flight.

I spent over R5000 on tickets.

FySafair overbooks their flights which results in this ugly mess!! If you cannot be an airline of integrity and good ethics you deserve to be cancelled!!!