USA Today reports the story of Diane Campbell, a San-Francisco area woman who is disabled and on a fixed income, who found that the Palo Alto Apple store would not take the $600 cash payment that she wanted to hand over for an iPad.

“It took quite a long time for me to just save up this small amount of money to go down and purchase one,” she told a local news station. “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.’”
Imagine Diane’s surprise then, when she was stopped in her tracks by the store staff and told that they didn’t take cash.

According to USA Today, Apple only takes credit or debit card payments for the iPad or iPhone because it makes it easier to stop them from being bought in bulk and sold abroad. The U.S. Treasury says that there is no law anywhere that says a business must accept cash if it’s offered.
It remains to be seen if Diane will get her iPad in the end, maybe she’ll get a free one from Apple?!

By Maura Sutton, iPadForums.net
Source: USA Today

All businesses should be required to accept all forms of currency. That means dollar bills, or pennies. Imagine if your local convenience store started pulling this crap...

That's really absurd! And what an embarrassment to the customer. The last Apple computer I bought was on Black Friday a few Thanksgivings ago. I had just sold the last of my litter of Golden Retrievers and was able to pay cash for my iMac. Usually avoid shopping on that day, but the bargain offered on the iMac got me in there. Even though the store was jam packed, they were happy to take my cash. I could see if the lady was buying 10 iPads, but P-A-L-E-E-Z-E! 1 16 gig Wi-Fi iPad? Apple should be so embarrassed that they GIVE her a 64-3G iPad and a huge apology.

Well I've been to plenty of places that only take cash so iguess it can work both ways. Once it's fully launched and supplies are plenty they will take any form of payment.

Big brother can't control the customer when they pay with, you know, money.

I don't think its that big of a deal. If the lady doesn't have a credit card or debit card she can open up a free account at her local bank and get a Debit card. Or she could go to the nearest Wal Mart or drugstore and buy a Visa or AMEX gift card to use.

Its actually a business practice that takes a lot of risk out of the retail business. This means there is no danger of accepting counterfeit bills, employee theft, employee mistakes, and no trips to a bank to make a deposit late at night.

Keep in mind that it costs the retailer money to accept credit so it's not like they are doing it to be greedy.

This has been their policy for quite some time, i'm surprised it's just now making the news.

Originally Posted by Edlex

Keep in mind that it costs the retailer money to accept credit so it's not like they are doing it to be greedy.

It costs money to accept cash too. I have heard several retailers suggest that moving to an all credit system, would actually reduce costs because of the costs of cash, risk of theft and embezzlement, etc.