Already linked to someone else NEW decoder

Can someone please explain how I bought a dstv decoder on the dstv website but when I tried to link it it was already linked to someone else then got told would be escalated and they would get back to me but they never did it took me contacting them for the 3rd time to find out a problem which 2 people had told me that I would need to replace the decoder had mysteriously been fixed. If it's linked to someone else doesn't that mean that it isn't new?