Booking gone missing even though I paid and confirmed with customer service

On 12 October 2017 I booked a movie for 16 December 2017 at Mall of Africa Cinema 7 at 14:00 for 5 people. During payment, there was a timeout error on the website but the payment was charged to my credit card. I received a reference number.

I phoned customer care and explained what happened. They checked my reference and advised that my booking was successful and read my seat numbers back to me. They said that I would be able to get my movie tickets as usual by swiping my card at the cinema self-service.

Today (11 Dec 2017) I decided to double-check my booking just in case. Good thing I did because suddenly I was advised that my booking had never been successful and that they had no record of my payment (by this point I had paid over 2 months ago) or the booking being finalized.

After much back and forth between myself, customer service and the cinema manager, I was told that I would have to rebook (at the last moment - my ideal seats are no longer available) and attempt to get a refund from the cinema on the day of the movie by providing proof of payment. Ster-Kinekor's faulty system has caused me major inconvenience and I suspect that getting my refund is going to be an additional headache...but more about that later.