Sold me a defective item, no accountability.

I purchased a fridge in November 2018. 3 months later the rubber lining of both top fridge and bottom freezer came loose restricting the opening and closing function of the fridge. This made the fridge either defrost or overfreeze spoiling my contents.

Takealot makes it impossible to return items allowing returns only on a Monday - Friday between 8 - 5pm although they deliver on Saturdays when you purchase items, this is not available if you are unsatisfied. following numerous requests one of their call centre agents, told me to "bring it with me to work" as though i could carry a fridge in my purse! As a result of this i decided to see if i could just live with it until 2 months later i realised this was a tedious and damaging process that i shouldn't have to live with after committing to such a cost only 5 months prior!!!! So i forced myself to take time off work to facilitate the return.

Without assessing my fridge, i received an almost immediate rejection of my return, zero accountability and zero acknowledgment of the item being defective, with comment that there was a dent on the outside. On further request of escalation, I was advised that Takealot would not accept the return because this was not in line with their 7 day return policy. I interrogated their policy to find that the agent was reading it in isolation of the full policy and with the sole purpose of rejection as their policy states that a return is possible post 30 days if the item is defective, as mine clearly was. Post at least 8 emails later, i was accused of user damage as the cause of rejecting my return - as though i would just at whim rip out the rubber lining of my fridge?!

On further escalation and at least 15 emails later, i was advised that i could lodge a repair myself with Defy but Takealot would not be accountable or involved in the process of acknowledging the faulty item or facilitating the repair.

to date, all of my fridge items are spoilt. i have spent at least two weeks without a fridge, i have taken time off to facilitate the return, i have engaged in a frustrating back and forth with takealot remaining firm in their stance of using whatever excuse they can to not acknowledge they sold me a defective item and i am STILL not able to facilitate the repair with Defy as my fridge STILL has NOT been returned to me.

Their customer service is so poor they probably wont respond to this as they assume no responsibility but do yourself a favour and rather do NOT buy large items from Takealot.