Phone came back from repairs not working

To whom it may concern, I must say that I am so dissapointed with the service I received from this service provider. In March I took my phone in as screen has cracked and was not displaying. When the phone came back I unfortunately didn't use due to I was out of town a week ago when I tried to use it the phone was not connecting to the Network (Vodacom) I called the service provider and explained that I didn't use the phone till as week ago and they told me that the waranty had expired and i have to now pay a R 1000.00. they didn't even attempt to check if phone was used since it came back from repairs.