No Cash, Only Credit

The recent confirmation that AT&T will not accept cash for the purchase of an iPhone in limiting purchases to one per customer has loosed a bee in the gadget-buying public's bonnet. Some speculate that AT&T wants to prevent untrackable purchases by employees and others who may try to resell the phones. and Apple Others take the darker view that AT&T and Apple want to track purchases in order to curtail "unlocking" of the phones (i.e., enabling them to work with systems other than AT&T). People who manifest a visceral dislike of Apple as potent as the slavish devotion exhibited by fanboys find in this development yet another example of Apple arrogance and artificial control of the market.

On a more basic level, some people are brought up short by the notion that a business can refuse to accept cash in payment for an item. Isn't cash our legal tender, valid for all debts? Yes, says the U.S. Treasury, but that is not the end of the story:

There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise.

It may be unsettling and a little distasteful, but refusing to accept cash is not illegal. Foolish, perhaps, but not illegal.