First of all hats off for your work as you told you are working from last six months and initially you don't have any experience. Its really appreciable that you working well and every time getting updated. Working in pawn shops and adapting their rules take time, have you ever faced any problem there? How was your experience?

If the people that he does business with knew what was up they would never do it again at best, possibly punch him in the face as well.
There is something inherently unethical about taking advantage of people's ignorance like this. Imagine you are OP and the story makes its way to the front page of the NY Times "Pawn shop owner gets $200 item from desperate unemployed musician, resells for $1,200 a few days later".
Those aren't TRUE win-win transactions, the person who sold the item only thinks its a win because he was mislead about the value of his item. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a lot of lying or pretending that an item is worth less than its actual collateral worth

The whole pawn model is basically predation.

In the internet era, there's really no reason to sell something for grotesquely cheap. Do that, it's financial Darwinism, no tears from me.

I just hate businesses that prey on the financially illiterate. Pawn, auto title loan, payday advance, check cashing, there's a reason why certain businesses exist in certain neighborhoods.

They're either preying on the desperate or scalping the dumb. I don't think it should be illegal but I judge pawnbrokers as an embarrassingly low element of society.

It never ceases to amaze me how so many people believe that when two parties willingly agree to take part in a transaction if can be a "scam."

Pawn shops provide a necessary service. The people who go into pawn shops do so because they have a financial emergency. These people fully understand that the gold ring they pawned for $150 can be sold for $500. But they don't have the time, inclination, or ability to sell it at the fair market value. That's where the pawn shop comes in. They are willing to take that item immediately in exchange for less than fair market value. You act like pawn shop owners are filthy rich. They still have to put in the time, money, and effort to sell that item at fair market value.

If you're poor and you have a financial emergency you simply won't have any good options. It's not like you can go to the bank and get a loan with 5% interest or cash out your savings bonds. The pawn shop is almost always the best way to go. It's a way to get money really quickly without having to go into debt to do so. A poor person can pawn an item they don't need or want and replace it with something they really do need or want: cash. It's a win-win. If it wasn't a win-win the transaction would never take place.

I can think of plenty of reasons:

- You have a financial emergency and don't have time to wait a week to list an item on ebay or craigslist.
- You aren't sure if anyone will even want to buy your used rotary saw on ebay or craigslist but you still need the money.
- You don't know how to use a computer or aren't savvy enough to protect yourself from fraud.
- You'd rather spend your time doing something else.
- You don't have access to a computer or you don't have an email address.

I'm not trying to say pawn brokers are saints. But the fact is, the only reason pawn businesses are successful is because they provide a legitimate service to the marketplace. If pawn shops didn't exist the poor in this country would be worse off.

What better alternative is there?

Be honest with the customer, don't pretend there is something wrong with the item, don't lie about its worth, have a reasonable profit margin not one that is based off bad information of someone poor and ignorant

The Pawn Charity could offer them full price and educate them on how to save money.

Say a pawn shop buys an item for $150 and sells it for $500. How much of that $350 do you think goes to the owners after expenses?

Not permit businesses that are appallingly usurious.

Funniest thing I've read all year. Some real mindless dogma you got going on there. It's amazing anyone would suggest that and try to keep a straight face.

Pawn does not empower the poor. It subsidizes their ****ty decisions and profits from them. It's the financial equivalent of the Liquor Store right on the border of the Indian Reservation.

The entire basis for payday advance is the idea that anyone who needs to use the service will rarely have enough money to pay off the loan AND their life expenses, thus the paycheck keeps rolling into the lender, who issues a new loan. A VALID SERVICE FOR THE MARKET say some but the reality is, serving the market and scalping the poor are two different things.

Your whole White Knight narrative about the 'good' uses of pawn shops is an inadequate characterization of them and strongly suggests you probably watch a lot of Pawn Shop TV shows.

Geez. Like I said in my previous post pawn shops aren't charities. They don't exist to help out poor people they exist to make a profit. I'm not saying they're magical get out of poverty places. They won't turn a poor person's life around. But they will help out a poor person in a pinch. They are able to exist because they fill a need in the marketplace.

And I don't know why you bring up payday lending. That's a completely different business. You don't go into debt when you deal with a pawn shop.

Please answer the question posed earlier. If a person is poor and hurting for money what better option is there for him to get that money???

Apparently if you don't give them options, poor people start making smart decisions and no longer need money in a pinch.

it's 2013. if some dip**** is too lazy or stupid to even check ebay to see what the going rate is for something and they end up selling a guiatar for 200 that they could have sold for 1200 it's not the pawn guys fault they're lazy and stupid.should the pawn broker hold their hand while they cross the street also?

you really think pawn brokers are typically making 6x profit on every item thats a good one.

hello good sir who is too lazy, stupid or doesn't have the time to list the item for sale to get maximum value- i would like to purcahse it at near full retail, do all the work you don't want or can't do and make next to nothing on it.

yea gl with that.

so lend the people who typically use pawn shops money at 6 percent interest and see how that works out for you.

Answer: all other methods people use to get fast money without pawn shops. If you're saying you cannot conceive how any such methods exist WITHOUT pawn and you need me to make you a list (like, borrow it or sell your stuff someplace other than a pawn shop) then you're not very bright. The usury-economy has relied on people in desperate need for fast money since the beginning of time. Its mere existence doesn't morally justify its presence.

I'm usually very pro 'who cares what two consenting adults want to do, even if its stupid' but when you step back and look at the big picture (which is pretty hard for some people since it requires them to objectively appraise the people who exploit the poor AND the poor themselves which tends to transcend two-dimensional left/right dogma), you start to realize that these businesses aren't a positive, empowering factor in those communities but rather a morally bankrupt, parasitic element that eventually comes to negatively influence the culture itself.

I mentioned payday advance loans because its all within the same ambit.

As noted, I wouldn't advocate pawn shops have some blanket ban but I could totally understand a community deciding to now allow them (which many do not) and I will basically always judge pawnbrokers to be the scum of the earth right along with other predator types who do stuff that happens to be illegal.

What are the odds that person would have a credit score to justify a 6% loan? Next to nil. Credit scores are a perfectly reasonable way to adjudge someones worthiness of a loan and what rate they should pay.

You bet, it cuts the poor out of the credit market and leaves them vulnerable to financial exploitation but it doesn't somehow morally justify the exploitative business in question.

Say someone who uses a pawn shop or payday loan place or whatever, isn't able to, thanks to wonderful citizens such as yourself. What do you think happens to someone who uses such a place when they need cash, to say pay a power bill or their rent or whatever?

That would mean they either derive cash from other sources or their power gets turned off and/or they get evicted but your premise is skewed.

What percentage of pawn transactions do you think are legitimately preventing tragedy versus those that are just ordinary exploitation, or those that are just staving off the inevitable crash and burn?

Likewise, we could note that the presence of pawn is undeniably a huge impetus of theft. Kinda pointless to deny this since all manner of pawn regulatory laws have been passed for this very reason. The same people you cite as being in dire straits pawning their own stuff to stay afloat will eventually run out of stuff and wind up taking stuff from others with the distinct idea in their heads that there's a building with a fat guy wearing a loupe who's willing to give them a little cash for whatever they bring in.

Its sad that sometimes, bad stuff is inevitable but whatever marginal role pawn plays in allowing the financially illiterate to keep their heat on is completely trivial compared to the 'rest of the story'.

You know how many jobs out there pray on people's miss fortune?

not many as egregiously as pawn shops

Sure. We've heard that three times in this thread. And for the third time were asking you to name just one of these other methods you speak of.

Just one. Go ahead. Name one.

Loan sharks?

Sperm donors ?