bank-approved beneficiary to Russells furnisher store

On the 8th of September 2025 and 27th October 2025, I made payments through my app to a bank-approved beneficiary, Russells. This was done on the advice of a call centre agent who had called me about the outstanding payments from Russells. After payments were made more calls came from Russells asking about the payments which I told them I had made and even shared proof of payments to that regard, then I was 1st told that they never received the payment to later then confirming that Yes that used to be their account number but that account was closed in 2019, both payments were successfully made from my bank to that Russells bank, now to my understanding the money should have bounced back if the account seized to exist according to Russells, Russells has done nothing to help in this matter except refer me back to my bank which is Nedbank, Nedbank also has not been very helpful since the money is out of my account, in December we went to Absa to try and get the money out of the suspense account that it might be allocated to but a consultant said this is actually a complex issue and they wont be able to help us because we are not banking with them, help can only be offered if someone from Russells was present as that’s who their client is and also advised us to send an email requesting the refund to be made which we did not get help from. On the 23rd of January 2026, another email was sent to Absa, in cc was Russells and Nedbank, of which we did not get any response from. We then proceeded to call Absa where we were advised that there is no way that Russells did not receive the money, because bank approved beneficiary are public and if Russells had closed the account in 2019 why did they not update it in the system and two had the account been closed the payments were going to bounce back within ten working days, since that never happened it meant that the account is still active. We have exhausted all avenues in trying to get help with the issue an email thread is available to prove all our attempts to resolve the issue. I have been calling Nedbank to get help from the person who was dealing with this Case Madisa, but since last year, she has always been on another call, and I have been promised a call back, but she never calls back. Numerous calls have been made to her, but she has not returned any of my calls. My case reference number ***