Apple Reverses iPad "No Cash Purchase" Policy 377
ZipK writes "After a few days of bad publicity, Apple has reversed its no cash purchase policy, explaining that the policy was originally implemented to limit the number of iPads an individual could buy during the introductory period of short supply. Now that supply has caught up with demand — and the story has hit front pages and gained national attention — Apple has reversed its policy, and taken the opportunity to put a bow on the story by giving the formerly scorned Diane Campbell a free iPad."
Re:Black market? (Score:5, Informative)
The idea is to limit the number of purchases that a single customer can make. It's sort of hard to sell a hundred iPads on eBay or to people in other countries when you're only able to buy two of them yourself (yes, obviously it's probably possible to use several credit cards or have your friends buy iPads but I think this should be seen as more of a way to eliminate the low hanging fruit to discourage the casual opportunists).
Re:Black market? (Score:3, Informative)
It's not complicated. There is a two per person limit. They kept track of how many a person bought by their credit card. It's not illegal or against Apple policy to sell your iPad, it is against their policy to buy 200 iPads and open up a store selling them in a country where it's not yet available.
Re:This note is legal tender (Score:3, Informative)
The local Apple store just needs to put a sign in the window:
No Shirt, No Shoes, No Traceable Payment Method, No Service.
Re:This note is legal tender (Score:4, Informative)
Re:This note is legal tender (Score:5, Informative)
A purchase (exchange of money for goods) is not a debt. You can show up at your bank with $1000 in pennies to pay your mortgage and they have to take it, because that is a debt, but any vendor can decline cash for purchases. That's why it is legal for some fast-food places and such have signs that they do not accept denominations over $20 (which are more susceptible to counterfeiting and also quickly reduce their change-making ability).
Re:This note is legal tender (Score:5, Informative)
Okay, I guess I was wrong:
[from the horse's mouth] [treas.gov]
Re:Black market? (Score:4, Informative)
Whatever the legal status of a device is, Apple has demonstrated on plenty of occasions that it doesn't think one really "owns" something bought from them.
Do you have any real examples? Aside from services Apple offers (not purchases) what can't you do with Apple products that Apple prevents you? Once you buy it, do what you want. Take it apart, hack the software, put a different OS on it, since when has Apple stopped you? They even have legal recourse to go after jailbreakers of iPhone or people who make the tools, but they don't bother.
Re:This note is legal tender (Score:4, Informative)
A purchase is not a debt. As per the US Treasury's faq (here [ustreas.gov]):
"all United States money as identified above are a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. 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."
Re:Confused... (Score:3, Informative)
Can somebody explain to me why buying 10 fully loaded iPads with my gold Amex prevents me from selling them on the black market afterwards but paying for one in cash doesn't?
Umm, because Apple won't sell you 10 fully loaded iPads with your gold Amex, just two. That doesn't stop you from buying two and reselling them, but it makes it a lot less worth your while.
Re:class act (Score:3, Informative)
Of course they are and Apple wasn't stopping anyone from reselling their iPad at whatever price they wanted. They just weren't going to let people buy an unlimited amount when their supply was low.
Re:Black market? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:class act (Score:2, Informative)
>>>They limit sales to two per customer,
So I'll use multiple credit cards then. I've got 6 or 7 of them, so I could get 12 or 14 iPads. Again their reasoning makes little sense when closely examined.
Re:class act (Score:3, Informative)
Well, of course it doesn't make sense to people who lack facilities for reasoning.
Besides, it's not like credit cards are identified by unique numbers so how are they going to keep people from buying additional devices? (And what braindead user with mod points thought the above poster was informative?)
Re:class act (Score:2, Informative)
Re:class act (Score:3, Informative)
I've got a $20,000 credit limit and could buy tons of them.
Doesn't matter. They were keeping track by CC number (I recall some anecdotal reports of this online). Sure, you could have ordered a bunch from a bunch of non-Apple stores, but it's still another hurdle to jump.
Re:class act (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Amazing how bad PR always helps Apple get it ri (Score:3, Informative)
Oh wow, you mean people are trying to sell shit for twice what it's worth and nobody is buying it on Ebay? Quick, call the channel 12 news!
Nobody's buying an iPad for $1100. It's a joke, just idiots fishing. There are iPads on there for only slightly more than you could buy them for at the Apple store.
Whilst stupider people whine on slashdot.
ZaZing!
Re:class act (Score:3, Informative)
BUT their reasoning makes zero sense. Forcing me to use a credit card instead of cash won't stop me from buying multiple iPads and then selling them to other people. I've got a $20,000 credit limit and could buy tons of them.
No, you can't. Apple uses your credit card to keep track of how many iPads you've bought.
Re:class act (Score:3, Informative)
What it says on US currency is true: "THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS PUBLIC AND PRIVATE" (yes, it's in caps). That means buying an iPad, or buying a cup of coffee.
No it doesn't. It means paying rent or a bill. If you're buying something at a retail store, they don't have to take cash at all.
Re:class act (Score:3, Informative)
What it says on US currency is true: "THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS PUBLIC AND PRIVATE" (yes, it's in caps). That means buying an iPad, or buying a cup of coffee.
WRONG. What it says is true. It doesn’t mean buying an iPad, a cup of coffee, or anything else, because a purchase is not a debt.
There is no debt unless a transaction was completed, no transaction until they decide to sell you one, no sale unless you pay for it, and cash payment is not accepted.
If they give you a financing arrangement (buy now, pay later), that is a debt and they can’t refuse to accept cash payment. A straight sale, however, does not generate debt and they can choose what form of payment they’ll accept, including choosing not to accept certain forms of legal tender.
It's not a counterfeiting thing (Score:3, Informative)
Part of it is making change. A larger part is drawers in the cash registers and slots in the safe. Most cash registers don't have slots in their drawers for $50 and $100 notes, so you have to store them in the bottom, which is inconvenient and could lead to them getting forgotten. Also these places often use time release safes and depending on the kind, they have intake slots for different bills, and don't always have the largest denominations.
However the largest part is risk. The big bills are of a great risk when it comes to being stolen. For one, it means more money in a small place when it comes to a hold up, but there's also a bigger risk of an employee taking it. After all, a single hundred is real easy to stuff in your pocket and sneak off with, and it is worth a lot which makes it attractive.
You are correct though in terms of accepting cash. For purchase, a place can choose whatever terms they like in how you have to pay. For debts, teh government requires that you take treasury notes as payment, like it or not.
Re:class act (Score:3, Informative)
No, I'm saying that Apple doesn't control the apps, nor what you can do with them. I thought that was fairly clear. Let me pull up a quote, just a sec...
Apple does not control all the apps for the iPhone, nor to they control what you can do with it.
Yup, looks right.
Re:class act (Score:3, Informative)
Apple makes the same amount of profit per unit whether one or several million people buy them so why should they care at all?
Because they wanted to make sure more people were able to get them?
Now not only does Apple want to control your software and hardware choices, they also want to mess with the laws of economy as well.
It's actually pretty common for companies to set limits on the number of products one can buy especially on items with low supply. Sony is doing it right now with people buying PS3s from them (they also have a limit of 2 per person). Places like FRYS Electronics also only let you, for example, buy 2 hard drives per purchase.
Re:class act (Score:3, Informative)
What it says on US currency is true: "THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS PUBLIC AND PRIVATE" (yes, it's in caps). That means buying an iPad, or buying a cup of coffee.
I suggest you actually read up on the statute before shouting your mouth off:
This statute means that all United States money as identified above are a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. 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.
From here [ustreas.gov].
Re:class act (Score:3, Informative)
As I mention in this thread, I've been corrected.
My understanding was incorrect.
Re:class act (Score:1, Informative)
Which would be a PCI violation -- vendors are NOT allowed to store the CC number any longer than required to execute the transaction.
This is false.
PCI DSS requires that stored card numbers be protected (e.g. encrypted) and that they not be transmitted in the clear over public networks. Card numbers in the clear indefinitely. However, for the purposes under discussion, it's not necessary. A hash suffices, and storing hashed card numbers is perfectly hunky-dory under PCI DSS.
I work in the payment card industry and am in part responsible for ensuring that our storage and transmission of PCI DSS controlled data is in compliance. The requirements are complex and certainly cannot be adequately described by such a simplistic statement.
Incidentally, Apple most certainly does store CC numbers - my iTunes store purchases automatically go to the card I am required to keep on file with them.
Re:class act (Score:2, Informative)
But what if there were no rules in place to limit scalping?
Minnesota repealed scalping laws about 3 years ago. I haven't noticed much disturbance.
Re:class act (Score:1, Informative)
You put that number on file with them; you know it's on file with them. That is a very different situation from storing the number at the point-of-sale without permission.
[citation needed]
The payment card PAN (i.e. CC number) is allowed to be stored in encrypted format, provided that the vendor has a business reason to do so (as defined and documented by the vendor) and a data retention policy. Section 3.1.
Section 3.2 covers cardholder data that cannot be stored (even encrypted) after the sale is complete. The card PAN is not one of them.
I can find no mention of requiring that the cardholder consent to storing the PAN.
Re:This note is legal tender (Score:3, Informative)
You are perfectly free to come up with some other form of payment for your transactions, but nothing other than Federal Reserve notes have the backing of US law. That does not mean you are required to pay or accept cash for any transaction, it just means in certain situations (specifically debt) you cannot refuse cash.
In other words, you're free to print up some paper and trade with it, but you can't try to pass it off as a Federal Reserve note or you'll land yourself in jail for counterfeiting. It also, obviously, won't be legal tender and can be refused by anyone on either side of the transaction for any reason.
At the end of the day, anyone doing business in the USA must accept US currency; you cannot create your own or use any other foreign currency.
Which is completely false. You are not required to accept US currency for trade, nor are you disallowed from accepting any other form of payment. If that were the case, then checks, bank transfers, credit, and debit cards would all be illegal. None of those are certified by the US government as legal tender. Federal Reserve notes are the only form of currency that has such a designation.
What the law essentially says is, if you owe someone a debt, they cannot refuse the Federal Reserve note as payment for that debt. Also, if the person owed the debt refuses other forms of payment, the debtor must pay in cash, as no other form of currency has legal tender status. A prior agreement to use some other form of payment (even none-equivalent equivalent forms, like small round rocks) is perfectly acceptable. Also, you can refuse to complete a transaction for any reason, including refusing to accept or give Federal Reserve notes. In this case, there is no debt, so the cash rule does not apply. That's what Apple did, they simply refused all cash transactions, which is perfectly legal. Had they been handing them out on payment plans, however, they could not legally refuse cash as payment.
Re:Black market? (Score:1, Informative)
Apple might not go after individual users (which only proves they are not as stupid as RIAA) but they do go after people attempting to disseminate information about how to use something other than iTunes to load music onto an iPod (BluWiki), they recently won a case against Pystar who were buying OS-X and loading it onto non-Apple hardware in contravention of the EULA, you can't get flash on your iP(o|a)d, etc. With Apple, as with other proprietary software companies, it's not yours once you buy it you are tied up with any number of technical and legal measures. Sure you can jailbreak the device, you can run it over with a truck if you want, but when it comes to attempting to use it for or slightly beyond it's purpose you hit limits and they are strictly controlled by Apple.