We mentioned months ago when it was first rumored that the iPhone 5 would replace the iPhone’s now-familiar 30-pin connector with a smaller, but still proprietary connector, that this could cause problems for people whose accessories were all of the old 30-pin type. And here we have the story of Consumerist reader Nick, who lost the charger for his iPhone 5 and is now staring at a very pretty device that he has no way of charging.

“If you lose your charger, Apple doesn’t have any, Best Buy doesn’t have any, Verizon doesn’t have any,” writes Nick.

A check of various retailers’ shows that while there are plenty of sleeves and ways to bling out your iPhone 5, no one seems to have the “Lightning” power cord, with vague time frames — “1-2 weeks,” “3-5 weeks,” “October” — being given for when these items might be available. Apple.com still has no release date on the Lightning to 30-pin adapter.

“Apple can’t even give you a rough estimate of when to see those again,” says Nick, who says the best he’s been able to get is the aforementioned “October,” which doesn’t bode well, since we’re a third of the way through the month.

“So be happy that you paid several hundred dollars for the best phone on the market,” says Nick, “Because you can’t use it simply because accessories are backordered and restricted to certain manufactures to make them.”

UPDATE: Thanks for all of your e-mails suggesting various retail stores. Nick had already tried a number of them, but is going to see if he can get lucky this time.

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