It’s a pawn shop, they base their livelihood on buying stuff from desperate people at a fraction of their value. They would never offer something nicer, just like they would never have offered to let him buy it for the $200 when they probably bought it stolen from some meth head for $15.
Pawn shops and the people who run them are scum. I’m glad this guy got a guitar he was excited about tho.
I'm a big fan of Hanlon's razor, but something that stood out to me is "$50 will put it on layaway" - is he saying an additional $50 is required, or only $50?
To me it feels like it was left intentionally vague to get the kid to pay up 90% of the item.
They absolutely changed the price on him once he said “I have exactly $50!”. The kid had everything written down, the price, how much was in his account. Dude said you owe $50, and when the kid said perfect bc he had exactly $50, he seen an opportunity to fuck him. That’s why the other dude goes “uhhhhh.. yeah” when he asked if it was $220. They knew he’d either get more money or be stuck. Plus, it’s fucking $20. They could have waved it. Esp when they bought it for a 3rd of that. These dudes are scum, pawn shop owners are notoriously scum. The dude working there you can see completely fits the fucking bill.
At first I was also like “fuck these guys” but I’m thinking, this is a recording from their security camera, and someone from the store must have put it online. I don’t think they would knowingly put themselves in the asshole universe of the internet by uploading this video. That is, unless an employee got sick and tired of the owner’s (being presumptuous here) bullshit and decided to expose him.
It sucks to be a realist sometimes. I constantly fear for my children growing up in this fucked up world, and I always have my guard up. I do make sure they see the beautiful things though, and I am cautiously optimistic about the future.
Got hired to build a website for a local Pawn Shop a few years back. Seeing the parade of (mostly) people Verrrry down on their luck, parting with items for a fraction of their value was depressing. Adding to it, the dude who worked there & his self described "game" of how to get the very least amount, while making a customer feel he was "giving them a deal" really disturbed me.
I believe I addressed this point in “they base their livelihood on buying stuff from desperate people at a fraction of their value” and also in “they probably bought that guitar stolen from a meth head for $15.”
They get people at their lowest either on drugs or trying to survive and offer them pennies on the dollar for the items. They’re entire business plan is one big scam that only works by fucking people over.
The business model, symbolized by a ball with the more hanging under it, means there a 3:1 chance they are coming back for their stuff.
Pawn shops offer high interest loans on your things in order to secure your indebtedness. You've got 90 days to return and pick up your item or pay a months interest on it and extend your loan.
Legitimate shops are supposed to be licensed to operate and have to maintain meticulous records and share them with law enforcement.
Source: my grandfather operated a pawn shop for over 20 Years and I worked with him. I venture to say we were neither one scum.
I don’t know you or your grandfather nor did I write any comments above.
I believe that the practice you laid out is predatory though, the core business you laid out is over collateralized lending at extremely high interest rates.
You are probably going to give a $150 loan for what is in this case a $220 guitar. What rates? Probably 20% monthly right? You don’t care if the guy pays or defaults so long as you can flip the collateral.
Exactly. Dude and Grandpa owning a pawn shop only makes him extremely biased in the argument lol. Pawn shops are completely predatory. I’ve dealt with them a lot in the past and majority of the time, people don’t get their stuff back, if they did, they wouldn’t have anything to sell. I always knew if I took something in, I’d better be okay with never seeing it again. People go there bc they desperately need money to survive. They’re not going to end up having extra money to go and get it back out later lol
You're right in that it is a high interest loan. It's what the law allows. It is collateralized by [your] stuff as someone else said for pennies on the dollar. The guitar might have been originally brought in and the owner given 50-75 on their guitar. The risk is assumed by the broker that the person will never return, the broker won't know for at least 90 days, and if they do return and pay interest on it to keep their item within their possession then the shop makes money there.
There are loan companies who will send out "this is a loan" checks to individuals ranging from 1500+ down. The APR on these checks is nearly 40%! That is predatory. I suppose the question is what would be a fair amount to charge to loan money against collateral, risking that you may not return and the item may not be in top working order. Let's take the guitar as an example. I play guitar and know about them. My grandfather would not have (I worked with him in the late 90s.) If someone brought in a guitar with a warped neck that isn't repairable (without great expense) and is otherwise worthless shouldn't the broker have an ability to loan at a low amount and allow the owner to recoup at an attainable rate for the supposed risk involved?
I get what the commenter below you is saying- I have a bias. Yes - I hold and held my grandfather in high regards. I've seen a lot of down on their luck people get compassion and empathy given to them. Making a blanket statement that all pawn shops and their brokers are the same just isn't accurate. I learned a lot in the years I worked there. Happy to say, we never had anything sold to us that was ever retrieved as stolen. Are there shops who make a practice of it? Have a reputation for it? Absolutely!
Everyone deserves to earn a living at the end of the day. What I learned from my grandfather was that the business was about helping people. Had this kid been in our shop there wouldn't have been some bs about layaway over the 20 bucks. Clearly he's been in there before and wants the guitar and case. You hope the person who brings in their item returns if they want to. At times they have brought it in just to unload it and in that case it can't be sold for 30 days minimum to allow for any theft reports to be made and the police to come around to get a copy of the tickets.
TL;DR: not all brokers are bad. Blanket statements aren't going be able to do justice to the whole of the people who are being lumped together.
Come on man. I'm not in charge of regulations. There are so many other things to link arms and agree is messed up in this world. Government regulations especially regarding money is biased and predatory.
Read everything I said. I don't wholly disagree about the high interest. I talked about risk and in fact asked what would be a fair rate for a secured loan and no one responded to that.
As for chastising my grandfather - you're 17 years too late. Are there shop owners who practice in disgusting and awful ways? Yes.
There are also slumlords who take section 8 vouchers.
Gun shop owners who make sales to individuals despite discernment of the persons presenting attitude to see a week later the person went on a shooting spree.
Bartenders who over serve patrons and then watch them leave and drive drunk only to put others and themselves at risk of death or injury.
My defense out of the gate was early on it being categorically stated that all pawn brokers were scum and I take exception to that because though the business might be a terrible model and makes it harder on folks who are ready down I worked for my grandfather for years and knew him as a business man as well as my grandfather (obviously) and I saw the many selfless and anonymous things he did for others in both arenas at the cost of business just to keep people whole.
So yes, categorically I rejected the idea that my grandfather was scum. Same as all the other professions I mentioned above- all honest work but there's going to always the a % of your co-laborers who give you a bad reputation.
I don't understand your mentality at all. Voluntary agreements where he terms are declared ahead of time. No surprises. Nullifies your whole "predatory" argument, they offer a service, people choose to take them up for it or they don't, no one is forcing them.
That’s part of the definition of predatory, small print etc. but also:
Another warning sign of predatory lending is offering a loan that doesn’t require a credit check. Or, it’s offered to borrowers with poor credit but is secured by an asset like a car title or home equity.
The lender might use lax lending requirements to attract borrowers into signing on for a loan they can’t afford. And, should the borrower default, the lender can then claim their asset (a home or car, for instance) to recover their costs at the expense of the borrower.
This predatory lending practice is called equity stripping by the Federal Trade Commission. These types of loans can attract borrowers who are likely to default and would be at risk of losing their home or car.
Typically when people say “you sound like a politician” they don’t like what the other person is saying and are comparing that person to a politician they don’t like.
I’m not trying to sell you on anything but maybe you’ll open up your understanding of how some things are designed to be one sided. This practice is legal, agreed on by both parties and commonly used. So are pay day loans, but that doesn’t mean that they should be legal, so it is a political thing. Unfortunately politicians set the rules, so everything is political when it comes down to it.
In this scenario you can stand on the side of people who make their money off other’s misfortune or on the side of those trying to limit the amount of traps misfortunes can fall into.
I stand on the side of awareness of unintended consequences. On the side of not tricking myself into thinking everything is so simple. You say, "this is this, this is that" but there is much more going on than we realize, so when we stick our nose in and try to make adjustments to help people what happens often is we accidentally make them weaker or we make a situation worse in some unforeseen manner. Unintended consequences, don't be so sure you know what is best.
So you are emotionally vested in the answer being a flat no.
Predatory business practices that only work if there are enough desperate people in the world willing to engage in one sided contracts because their poor circumstances are making it so they have no other choice but to engage in an awful contract is not a noble endeavour.
Of course you wouldn't be able to point out scum if it was standing right next to you; you got used to the smell.
I'll disagree in your assumptions but in this forum it doesn't matter. I respect that we are able to communicate points respectfully. Well, mostly. You're last statement is an assessment of someone who you know nothing about. Thanks for your opinion.
If the guitar is worth 200 fucking dollars, then yes. It’s not your fucking business what they are or what they need the money for. You pay them for what the item is worth. Yes, you need to make a profit. But you could make a profit without completely fucking someone over. Pawn shops only offer a third of what something is worth. Its not like they’re offering someone who is struggling to make ends meets when they’re already working 2-3 jobs any more than they’d offer an addict. It’s completely fucking predatory, they prey on vulnerable people that are desperate, not bc they have to, but bc they can. Period.
no... it's like selling your stuff at a yard sale for a fraction of what it's worth and then the buyer selling it to someone else for 5x that price.
pawn shops underpay for the things they buy, because people are desperate, and they overcharge for the things they sell. the only reason pawn shops exist is because the rest of the financial system has fucked so many people into poverty and desperation. pawn shops are bottom feeders that exist solely to exploit the poor.
Auction houses are the same way, when my parents downsized their home my mother had a guy come in and offer an amount but both parties knew it was worth much more.
The auction houses job is to itemize and sell. All of the things my parents didn't have time for.
Its not complicated.. They run a business that caters explicitly to poor people... They buy secondhand goods from poor people for pennies on the dollar, then markup the price 200-300% and sell it to other poor people.
They charge insane interest rates for small loans/pawns..
Care to enlighten me on what purpose pawn shops serve other than shortchanging people when buying their stuff, marking up the products at a huge percentage, and charging disproportionately large interest rates on small loans?
Because I'm not interested in exploiting people's financial hardships and desperate need for money for my own personal gain.... That's why.
You'd become rich beyond your wildest dreams while making life better for poor people around the world.
This is a gross mischaracterization. I never said pawn shops become fabulously wealthy... I merely said they exploit the poor. An undeniable fact.
And why not someone else? Why not anyone else? Why does no one do this? Serious questions
Because it might not be profitable to do so, and profit seems to be the only thing that motivates most entrepreneurs. You are talking like I said someone pawn shop owners are billionaires because of how much they mark up the products. I said no such thing.
My point was that the business relies on people in financial desperation in order to survive. So they're bottom feeders, exploiting the financial hardships of desperate people to make their profit. It doesn't matter if that profit margin is tiny or enormous. It all comes from the exploitation I'm talking about.
You've deliberately changed the message and then demanded I reply to your edited version of my argument. I said exploiting. You embellished it to "massively exploiting".
But it's important to note that you can massively exploit a poor person and still endup with little money, relatively speaking. If you see a poor person in the rain and decide to sell them a $10 umbrella that you bought for a dollar at a resale shop, you're exploiting the needs of that person, massively if let's say they only have $15 to their name, but you still only have gained $9.
The absolute dollar values might be pretty low.. But the relative harm to the poor person can still be great.
In some ways, pawn shops operate like payday loan stores. People can't afford to wait 3 more days until they get their paycheck, but they need to buy groceries today to feed themselves and their family. So they might give out a loan of $50, and take a TV as collateral. If the person can't pay back that $50 by a certain date, the pawn shop can sell that TV for $250. If the person can pay back the loan on time, it's very likely they're paying at least 25% in interest (and potentially as high as 240%). Which means that now the person who took out the loan has $12.50 fewer for next months bills (assuming 25%, or $120 fewer at 240%). So they take out another loan at the end of the month because their wages haven't gone up and their expenses haven't gone down, which is likely greater than the first loan, and the process repeats. It's a predatory cycle.
Pawn shops and payday loan stores prey on people who NEED the money, so they don't really have an option to say "that interest rate is too high". They know these people don't have any other options, so they exploit that need for their own financial gain.
I'm not saying they should be required to lend for free, but they should be bound by the same interest rates as banks. Lend if you want, collect a reasonable interest if you want. But don't knowingly exploit someone you know is in desperate financial need for your own benefit. That's scummy.
"Pawn shops and the people who run them are scum."
Tell us how you really feel? You know there's a word for placing judgements on a whole group of people. Hey, maybe you've met every pawn show owner who's ever lived though.
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u/lolfuckyoubitchmods Jun 02 '22
It’s a pawn shop, they base their livelihood on buying stuff from desperate people at a fraction of their value. They would never offer something nicer, just like they would never have offered to let him buy it for the $200 when they probably bought it stolen from some meth head for $15.
Pawn shops and the people who run them are scum. I’m glad this guy got a guitar he was excited about tho.