Company Genie not delivering on services offered and providing false information

On the 20th March this year I asked Melisa Labuschagne to submit a Trademark application on behalf of my company. Melisa advised me to register it under 2 classes, and invoiced me accordingly. ("Ok, in the classes we will have to register you under Services Class 41 for Education and either Class 44 for Medical or Class 45 for Legal Services.").

On the 8th May I sent an email requested an update on the status of the application, she replied saying "The trademark is still at court, we saw them on Friday only to hear we should be patient".

On the 29th June I again requested an update as was told by Frans that is had been approved by they were waiting for the final letter ("It is normally the final letter from court that takes a while...they never in a hurry but was approved at WCIP").

On the 19th July I asked for an update and was told by Melisa "It is still at the court for final approval."

By October there was still no communication on the status of the application. After writing a review, on her FB page, Melisa commented on my review saying she would refund me. She has subsequently disabled all reviews on her company page.

Two weeks ago, I posted a request on her company page for anyone who has had a similar issue to please contact me. At this stage there was no further response to any of my emails. Melisa then threatened me with legal action "Please remove your comment from Facebook with immediate effect as we have the right to now lay a defamation of character against you as per the constitutional law." She deleted my post that day and I was unable to find out if her other clients were also getting the runaround.

In the same email she finally gave me some information on the status of the application. "Class 3, Rejected and Class 41 Permanently Referred). I asked why she submitted it under Class 3, no response. I also followed up with the CIPC who advised that "permanently referred" means the application could not be processed due to insufficient funds and must be re-lodged. I sent this information to Melisa who responded "I hope you read everything they said clearly. I will await the call from the cipc and onbudsman"). I have still not received any formal confirmation that the application was even submitted ("applications as the reference numbers you provide are incorrect and cannot be used to search for a trade mark"-CIPC Trade Marks Division), after requesting it from Melisa several times, again I was only given the runaround "we requested the progress report"- sms reply 9th Nov.

To pay for services only to be treated in this manner is appaling and goes against the Consumer Protection Act's bill of rights, namely the, "Right to fair and honest dealing."