Tim writes that back in April, he walked out of a local AT&T store with a shiny new iPhone 3GS and a tiny pack of lies. A pushy salesman told Tim that he had heard from corporate that there was no new iPhone model planned for the rest of this year. Nope, no way. (Clearly neither Tim nor this salesman are regular readers of Gizmodo.)

I realize that I may be somewhat at fault for my current predicament, but I feel that I was lied to, and At&t isn’t doing anything about it. On April 26th of this year, I walked into my local At&t store in [redacted]. I had recently gotten out of a contract with Sprint, and have been eyeing an iPhone for some time. The salesman at the store seemed very helpful, but also somewhat pushy. I asked him if he had heard that a new Iphone would be coming out in June like usual, because if so, i was planning on waiting. He told me that “interestingly enough, we just got a information from corporate saying that, as a fact, there would be no new Iphone this year.” Since it seemed like he was speaking fact, I went ahead and bought the Iphone at that time.

Lo and behold, the new Iphone was announced, and At&t even offered to upgrade anyone who purchased their Iphone on May 7th or later. When I called At&t to ask if they could help me out, they said no, and that they could transfer me to the cancellation department if I wasn’t happy with the service I had received.

Do you guys have any tips for me? Should At&t be responsible for what their employees are telling customers?

First of all, this is a terrible way to learn a tough lesson: never take anything that a pushy salesperson tells you at face value. Sleep on it. Google it. As for Tim, he could try calling that AT&T Wireless store location and explaining the employee’s actions to the store manager. It might not help with his lack of an iPhone 4, but someone on the store level should know about this. An executive e-mail carpet bomb to the higher-ups at AT&T might help…but in the midst of iPhone mania, his message may well get no attention.

Any other ideas for Tim?

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