Takealot refusing to pay me my refund. Told of missing return items.

I have always held Takealot.com in high regard, I still want to however my experience with the processing of my refund has been ******* to say the least.

I purchased an inverter on 30 April and it was delivered as promised on 6 May. Upon opening the box and going through the manual I realised that the inverter requires a car battery in order to function. I may have missed this important piece of information when I purchased it. I logged a return for this inverter and collection was confirmed for 8 May. The Takealot.com collector collected the item at 10:33am on the 8th and I sealed the box with a sellotape because I have always been paranoid about issues with my return. I always note the driver's name, car details and time of collection in case something goes wrong with my items and this particular collection was no different.

I enquired with the collector if we need to sign anything before he leaves, he said "no, you will receive an sms confirmation right away though". The sms only came in at 13h35 stating that the collection was done at 08h33 instead of 10h33. I didn't hear anything from Takealot.com until the 11th when I sent them an email enquiring when my refund will be effected. To my surprise, I was told that one of the car cable accessories were missing. I found this pecu**** because, firstly I wasn't told of this until I reached out to them, secondly all the items were inside the box which I sealed with the sellotape. I provided all the collection details - including the collector's name, car registration, time of collection (inconsistency of actual time vs recorded time on the sms). I hoped that some investigation was going to take place and that I was going to be informed of the outcome, but more importantly that my money would reflect on my bank account.

Every single day since the 11th I have been sending emails and calling Takealot.com but no one cares to reply to my emails. When I call the call centre, an operator answers the calls but doesn't say anything even though I can hear background noise. I am upset because I want my money and I missed an opportunity to buy the right UPS I wanted which was on sale. Takealot.com policy stipulates 3-5 days for the refund to be processed, we are way past that timeframe here!!!