Forced purchase

I wanted to buy telkom mobile and mtn simcards and i was told i cannot get it without buying R20 and R30 airtimes respectively as this practice is PEP procedure. I was surprised by this as i will pay for simcards. I ended up buying R15.00 and R20.00 airtimes....Is this true PEP? the ****ed up thing is that i bought airtimes the previous day from checkers but i couldn't get sims due to their system error and i only need these sims to check quality of network coverage not that its for daily use....