Apple Rejects Cold, Hard Cash at its Own Stores

Physical money isn't good enough to buy an iPad.

The iPad is opening up computing possibilities for many other non-traditional users, such as dogs, cats and even those nearing 100 years old.

Diane Campbell, who is disabled and on a fixed income, wishes to go onto YouTube to learn some new songs to play on her guitar. Instead of getting a computer, she's been saving up for an iPad. Slowly she saved up $600 in cash and proceeded to the Apple Store in Palo Alto, Calif.

"It took quite a long time for me to just save up this small amount of money to go down and purchase one," she said to ABC local station KGO. "I had my cash in the backpack and I went up proudly to the counter and told them, 'I would like to purchase an iPad.'"

To her surprise, the Apple store workers told her that cash wasn't a suitable form of payment for the iPad.

"They said, 'Sorry, we don't take cash.' And, so I looked at her and I said OK she's kidding," Campbell recalled. But Apple wasn't kidding, and she wasn't allowed to purchase an iPad without plastic.

The ABC station contacted Apple and was told that the policy is "a limit of two iPads per customer and you must pay by credit or debit card. Gift cards will not work either."

Apple declined to explain its policies, but store workers said it was to curb grey market sales of customers buying iPads in large quantities and selling them overseas at a profit.

Despite cash being "legal tender," the U.S. Treasury Department says that there is nothing in the law that requires businesses to accept cash as payment.