No Goodwill or Consumer Protection

I was sold faulty AirPods by iStore. I booked the AirPods in for a diagnostics test, which determined that the left AirPod had a manufacturing defect. The AirPods only stopped working after the warranty had expired. I was informed by iStore that it is not their problem (despite being the official distributor of apple products and should take responsibility for the protection of their customers) and that there is nothing that they can do. There was no attempt to escalate this with Apple and to determine why they had received faulty AirPods to resell. iStore possesses no goodwill and will deflect any responsibility. When Apple arrives in South Africa is the near future, I would go straight to Apple instead of any purchase through the iStore as the iStore will not assist in any error on their end.