Poor and hopeless service from Makro online sales

Similar to other people, I made a purchase on the 29th of Nov 2019 on the online website and made payment on the same date. The order states that the goods to be delivered on 10 Dec 2019.

On the 12th of Dec 2019, order was still not delivered, and when I tracked the order it was however cancelled. When I contacted the call centre which is no less than 15 minutes of holding time, they advise the order was cancelled because of non payment. I told them it was paid and they picked up the payment however it was never allocated to the order due to a system glitch however they are stating they dont know whether it was their system or the banks fault however we use the payment method on the online system so I take issue with this. Further to this they refuse to honor the deal and would ONLY offer a refund which is unfair as the payment was made on time.

However during the call, I was advised to send an email to Makrocare with the proof of payment which I did on 12th Dec 2019 and advise that someone would contact me within 2 days however no one contacted me from the follow up department. I sent 3 further emails and made 3 further calls at my expense and time (some calls varied to over an hour seeking resolution)to the call centre as the only reply was that the "follow up department" will call you back. This follow up department is utterly useless and does not call and cannot reply to an email because they dont care about their customers.

I received an email on Sunday 22nd informing me that the payment would be sent to finance for a refund. However I have now been told that they cannot refund me in this year as all the the finance team are on leave and have protocols to follow which will mean that money will be sent by middle of Jan 2020.

They treat their customers so poorly and have no effective systems to handle customer complaints seriously. I cant believe a large company like Makro does not have a proper escalation process as we as consumers are not allowed to speak to the said follow up department.

Basically my recommendation is not to purchase from Makro online as they dont know how to help customers and rather go a store. At least it wont take 7-14 days to get a refund for Makros problems.