If you are planning to go to an Apple retailer store with a wad of cash to buy an iPhone, well you might just end up walking out empty-handed. This is because Apple has recently come up with a way to control the method on how iPhones can be sold and can be configured. They are now only accepting payments using credit cards or debit cards. They say that this way, they will be able to keep track who buys their phones, especially the bulk buyers.

According to one Apple Store employee in New York, this new policy that Apple has come up with, is an attempt to make sure that there will be no people who will purchase iPhones and then unlock and resell them for profit.

A report from the Associated Press that was published last week indicated that Apple was actually trying to limit purchases to two iPhones per individual and to only be able to purchase them if they are a credit card or debit cardholder. The store employees said that the 2-unit limit has always been implemented but the policy not to accept cash was new.

The public relations team of Apple has not responded to the numerous requests for comments regarding their new policy. However, the company’s efforts to curtail the unlocking and reselling of iPhones is pretty much obvious. It has been reported that the total number of unlocked and resold iPhones has gone up to 250,000. In a conference call last week, Chief Operations Officer of Apple, Tim Cook, announced that figure as the difference of the number of iPhones sold, around 1.4 million, and the number of those connected through AT&T Wireless,

According to an estimate one analyst made, the unlocked iPhones is causing Apple to lose millions of dollars. Gene Munster, a Piper Jaffrey analyst, said he knows that Apple collects US$18 from AT&T Wireless for every iPhone each month. This was based on what Apple reported as their iPhone revenue in their latest quarterly earnings, which would amount to over $4.5 million in revenue lost.

Another solution that Apple has come up with to manage the situation was by announcing to consumers that by altering the phone, they are violating the warranty qualifiers. However, iPhone owners do not seem to be bothered.

A lot of iPhone owners are not connected through the AT&T network, which was intended to be the only service provider that an iPhone can work on. People who purchase iPhones just download software widely available on the Internet to unlock their units so that they can use it with their own service providers, which includes even the international carriers, making anybody able to use the phone in almost any country, even in countries where the iPhone has not yet even been released.

There are also resellers who are putting up auctions for unlocked iPhones on eBay. Although Apple has designed the iPhone in such a way that it is difficult to add third-party applications, they will soon be releasing developer kits that will improve that. However, sellers are usually already able to include “bonus” added features of additional software like games and instant messaging services. They usually sell these iPhones for around $400 that is very reasonable for those people looking for more functional iPhones.