[tweetiepooh]

Me thinks that some of the heat in this discussion is the calling an individual a liar rather than the company/system.

There is a concept called "lying to children" where you tell an untruth to explain something that the listener can't or won't understand. (At this time of year there is an obvious one being told and shown repeatedly.) Now maybe there is need for a process/system change but until that happens just telling the customer this can't be done will normally suffice. Maybe some explanation could be given but again would the customer understand and is there time to do so, plenty more folk in the queue.

So while the response is "untrue" it's good enough for most situations. Now that doesn't excuse the failures in this particular case and the OP then pushed back and got something done.