Diane Campbell scrimped and saved from her fixed income for an iPad, but was turned away at a Silicon Valley Apple Store because you need a credit card to buy one. Apple wouldn't budge, even when local ABC affiliate appealed.

Apple wants to keep Americans from re-selling the iPad overseas, where the tablet device is not available for a couple more weeks, a clerk told Campbell, who is disabled. Credit cards offer Apple the easiest way to positively identify people and enforce a limit of two iPads per customer. So, even with a low-income advocacy group on her side, Campbell can get an iPad only by purchasing one second-hand from a credit card holder. Which is precisely the sort of re-selling Apple was trying to avoid in the first place. Maybe the company should just start requiring DNA samples.

[Photo via Getty]