Canadian Embasasy Pretoria

My wife and I app**** for visas in early April 2024. Our travelling arrangements were for June 2024. We were well in time as we went through the same procedure in 2011/12. After submitting our biometric payment, we learned that considering a visa takes about 210 days. It, therefore, made no sense to travel from Bloemfontein to Pretoria, and we consequently withdrew our application. The Canadian Embassy now refuses to refund our fees (R5100 odd). Why did they not stop us before paying?

We eventually redirected our travelling arrangements by visiting France. However, we lost a huge amount of our flight tickets.

Do not think it is easy to talk to someone at the Embassy. Mostly, you will receive automated responses, and should a human mail, it will be very cryptic.