Charging for repair of new phone

In the middle of February I upgraded my wife's cellphone contract. On the 17th of February 2015 the new phone got delivered. I got an sms to say the new contract becomes active on the 28th of February 2015. The new phone needed a micro sim but my wife still had the old big sim card, so in the meantime I connected the phone to wifi and setup the phone for her. On the 28th of February I went to the vodacom store to do a sim swap for her from the big sim to a micro sim. I inserted the sim card into the phone and the sim card doesn't pick up. I removed the sim card and tried my sim card which is a micro sim and it still didn't detect. I took the phone into vodacom so it can be repaired. I have now received a quote for R 2708.64 to repair a faulty sim card slot. They say the phone's warranty doesn't cover the sim card slot. My problem is it is a brand new phone that isn't even a month old that hasn't been used and now I must pay for a repair to be able to use it for the first time. And to top it off, the woman I spoke to said even if one of their consultants breaks my phone I am liable for the repair. This is pathetic, the phone has an out of box fault that I must pay to fix.<br>