An American teenager was banned from buying an iPad at an Apple store in Georgia because the sales assistant heard her speaking the Iranian language Farsi.

Sahar Sabet, 19, had been chatting to her uncle in the dialect before trying to purchase an iPad at the store in Alpharetta, near Atlanta.

But the Apple employee, who was also Iranian, refused to sell it to her, citing the 'bad relations' between Iran and the United States.

'He said 'I just can't sell this to you. Our countries have such bad relations'', the teenager told WSBTV.

Ms Sabet said she was shocked and embarrassed by the refusal, particularly because she was a U.S. citizen and already owned a number of Apple products including an iPhone and a Macbook.

'(It was) very hurtful, very embarrassing. I actually walked out in tears,' she said.

Ms Sabet was refused the iPad a second time after returning to the store with a TV crew.

On this occasion, the same Iranian staffer pulled out the company's store policy and pointed to a clause that outlaws the sale of any Apple products that will be exported to Iran, North Korea or other countries the U.S. doesn't trade with.

'This policy relies on the customer being honest,' the Apple employee said.

Ms Sabet said she later called customer service who apologised and said she could buy the iPad online.

'It's discrimination, racial profiling,' she said. 'He didn't have any business asking which country I was from.'

According to WSBTV, this wasn't the first time an American citizen has been banned from buying Apple products because of their ethnicity.

A fellow customer, Zack Jafarzadeh, told the station that staff at the Apple Store in Atlanta's Perimeter Mall had refused to sell him an iPhone because he had an Iranian background and was with a friend studying in the U.S. on an Iranian visa. 

Mr Jafarzadeh, who is from Virginia, said no one asked him whether the phone was being taken back to Iran, they just asked where he was from.

'We never talked to him about going back to Iran. I'm appalled,' he said.

'I would say if you’re trying to buy an iPhone, don’t tell them anything about Iran. That would be your best bet.'