Posted on 06/20/2012 7:17:27 AM PDT by posterchild
19-year-old Sahar Sabet says an Apple Store in Georgia refused to sell her an iPad after a store representative overheard her speaking in Farsi.
"Very hurtful, very embarrassing. I actually walked out in tears," Sabet told WSBTV about her experience.
When a reporter from the station returned to the same Apple Store with Sabet, the employee once again reiterated that it is Apple company policy to not sell products to anyone from Iran. The WSBTV reporter recorded video of the exchange on her phone.
Sabet is a U.S. citizen and a student at the University of Georgia but the iPad was to be a gift for a cousin living in Iran.
"When we said 'Farsi, I'm from Iran,' he said, 'I just can't sell this to you. Our countries have bad relations,'" Sabet said.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
My response was directed at the company policy articulated by the employee, "Based on the language I hear you speaking, you're from a company the U.S. has 'bad relations' with so we can't sell you an iPad."
If you sale an item to a customer after they have said they are sending it to a country on the sanctions list, both you and your employer may be held liable for export violations by the US government.
The above statement comes from training I receive from my employer twice yearly. The Apple employee acted according to US law.
[ “Well, she said she was buying the iPad for a cousin in Iran.”
She has the right to buy for herself but if she wants to send a gift, that’s a job for US Customs, not the Apple Store. ]
She was an idiot for not buying it from some place online and then shipping it over herself...
She told the clerk she was buying it for a relative in Iran— sort of like a straw gun purchase. There wasn’t much else the clerk could do.
If she had kept her mouth shut, she could have done just that. But she stated her intentions, Apple was then required to deny the sale as they cannot knowingly sell to someone who will violate export laws.
Frankly, I’m tired of hearing people not speaking in English. Assimilate, or GTFO.
File this under, I don’t really give a rat’s a.s.s.
I am actually impressed that a retailer trains its associates well enough to prevent ITAR violations. I work in an ITAR governed environment, and the number of times I have to tell the customer “No” on sending out documents without ITAR markings.
Thank you, for pointing this out. (ITAR -- International Trafficing in Arms Regulation).
Most of them became US citizens.
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