Selling goods that Is not in full working order

This morning I purchased a Flash device, the pep closest to me is 30km from here. When I arrived at my shop to find 15 people waiting to buy some airtime, I phoned to quickly activate it and the call centre told me that the sim card is not activated. Closed the shop and drove there again to resolve the problem and forcing them to Rica the sim card then and there. To come back only to find out that it was the same case. It saddens me that people can abuse the consumer to such an extent. No solutions are offered to me, in short the onus is on me to drive there again not knowing if I will get the service I pay for. R 200 diesel