R12 000 of my salary ****** by SAHL

At the end of Feb 2022 SAHL received a payment from a direct debit from my salary for a bond that has been cancelled (no longer exists). I followed up with both my employer (Government) and SAHL to find out where the money was an who was meant to refund me. An SAHL consultant, Ayanda, informed me that the amount would have immediately been sent back to my employer as there was no account to allocate the payment to. However, my employer came back stating they could not trace the funds and that I needed to get proof from SAHL that they did make the refund. When I called and spoke to Mandla Sithole I was informed that the refund isn't done automatically. I was requested to send him my payslips and he informed me that he would escalate the matter to his supervisor. He informed me that the refund takes about 5-7 days. I have not received any communication from SAHL subsequent to this although the 7 days has lapsed. Mandla has not responded to my email checking if the refund was going to be sent directly to me or to my employer. My issue with this is that if my employer will be refunds, I still have to wait for their turn around time for them to then send me the money (which is about 10 working days). I don't know who is allocated to my matter and when they will contact me.

This has been over a month of financial inconvenience for me with no clear end in sight. I have been a responsible customer and all my bond payments were made to SAHL with no glitches, but here I am having had to not have over R12 000 of my salary in February and figuring out how to cover my expenses. For this erroneous deduction to even happen was because neither myself or my HR we're sent an official cancellation letter by SAHL in order to stop the debits from going off my salary.

I'm very displeased.