Makro shows no care for 70 year old pensioner whose 1 year old fridge is not working

In February 2025, my mom asked me to buy her a fridge. I bought it online from Makro. She’s turning 70 years old in June, is a widow and pensioner. She diligently saved from her SASSA old age grant for over a year in order to buy the fridge cash.

In March 2026, the fridge stopped working. I contacted Makro, they sent out technicians from Defy to assess the problem and after a number of to and fro communication from me to them to ascertain what the outcome of the assessment was, I was told by Makro Customer Care that Defy would replace the non-working fridge.

Needless to say, this never happened and until now, my mom still has a one year old fridge in her kitchen that is not wokring. What did in fact happen is that Defy sent me an automated sms in April 2026 advising that the matter was resolved and requesting that the customer experience be rated.

I naturally informed Makro about this sms and told them in no uncertain terms that the matter was not resolved. More empty promises from Makro followed, where I was told that their Complaints Department would contact me. When I followed up after a few days to find out why I was not contacted yet, I was told that the Complaints Department did try to contact me but it emerged that they apparently had a different cell number listed for me than the one that I’ve been using all this time to contact Customer Care, hence them being unable to get hold of me. Meanwhile, I have sms’s from Makro Customer Care on my phone, so how their Complaints Department had some other contact number for me, boggles the mind.

The last response I received from Makro Customer Care towards end April was that this matter will be transferred to the store.

So here we are in May 2026 and my pensioner mom is still without a working fridge since March 2026. This is the customer care that Makro has showed toward her.