The Pawn Shop Dilemma

Jonny K · 07-21-2003, 01:09 AM

Not long ago I remember reading a discussion here about buying used DVDs instead of new ones. Being the poor guy that I am, I thought I'd check out a few pawn shops and see if there was anything decent.

Well I just bought "Gladiator" for 10 dollars Canadian (about 6 US) from a pawn shop and it's in MINT condition (VS maybe 26 dollars new). Totally perfect. I was quite pleased with my purchase until it occured to me that this movie may very well be stolen.

The last thing I want to do is support criminal activity, yet those DVDs are so cheap! What's a guy to do?

Jonny K.

Chuck West · 07-21-2003, 01:37 AM

There's a pawn shop near me that sells brand new DVDs (still in the shrinkwrap) for $10 each. They have 10-20 copies each of the newest, hottest movies. And wouldn't you know it, many of them have Wal-Mart or K-Mart price tags on them. I may be wrong, but I suspect someone in the distribution warehouses of these places are stealing them by the case.
It all comes down to an individual moral judgement... you make the call.

Larry Talbot · 07-21-2003, 02:24 AM

I have a friend who never buys from pawn shops, not because he's afraid stuff may be stolen, but because he believes pawn shops prey on people in desperate situations, i.e. people so broke they have to hock all their stuff...

Jeff Kleist · 07-21-2003, 02:32 AM

If they were stealing them from warehouses, they would not be priced. Rest assured that all those copies are hand lifted. No pawn shop would deal with mass organized theft, but most are willing to look the other way on the lifted stuff

If it's sealed with price stickers on it, avoid it, otherwise you can't really tell

Clay-F · 07-21-2003, 03:43 AM

I would call your local law enforcement and turn them in.

I have worked at a gamestore that accepted trades and such. It was much like a pawnshop.

If you Pawn or sell something they should be getting the information of who sold it. So the police could check up and see if any of those "sellers" happened to work at Walmart or Kmart.

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Rain · 07-21-2003, 04:06 AM

Any time I've sold DVDs or CDs, they've recorded my name, address, phone number and ID number.

If it makes you feel better, buy used DVDs only in shops that do that.

Dan Rudolph · 07-21-2003, 04:54 AM

I've heard employees at some chains have a good enough discount that they can buy stuff then sell it to a used CD store or something for a very slight profit.

David Lambert · 07-21-2003, 06:03 AM

Quote:

I've heard employees at some chains have a good enough discount that they can buy stuff then sell it to a used CD store or something for a very slight profit.

There may be some truth to this, but it can't happen much. I was a retail manager for a long time (over a decade) and in a "merchant association" situation where I interacted with managers of other chains. This sort of thing came up, and the max discount I ever heard of at any chain was 40% during a 3-day period at the holidays, as a "bonus". Pawn shops as a rule are paying less than that mark so they can sell for at or above that mark (i.e., am item street priced at $20 would be bought by an employee for $12-$14; pawn shop would want to buy it at $10 or even $5 so they can sell it at $15). Those are just some sample numbers, and I'm obviously not in-the-know about every pawn shop's situation or every chain's discount policy. But I find it hard to believe this would be profitable very often. No, if it came from a store employee to that pawn shop, it is probably a result of internal theft.

As far as the taking of names-addresses-id #'s when you sell to a pawn shop: a few years ago Memphis police raided about a half dozen shops that sold used CD's or Videogames on my end of town. Turns out they weren't doing a good job of following the rules on that. One of the places I frequented got shut down completely and their inventory confiscated...they were in the same parking lot as a Target, and it turns out a lot of their stock had "walked across the parking lot" if you get my drift. In fact, it was Target's management who had gotten the investigation rolling. Two other places had about half their inventory confiscated, but they paid fines and returned to business. Everyone who stayed open toughened up their rules quite a bit. Also, in many of these types of stores, video cameras got pointed right at the counterspace where these transactions happened, so that sellers could be more easily identified.

For a long time in Memphis, after these raids, I felt confident that anything I bought used was a legit item and not "hot". That was years ago now, though, and I now feel that they've slacked off from this level of toughness due to complacency. I rarely buy a used item anymore, and one of the reasons for that has to do with this. The other is because it is just so darn easy to find deals on most day-to-day stuff. And if I'm looking for something rare, I don't depend on lucking into finding it at a shop like this; I head to eBay or use some other organized method of hunting it down.

Chuck said it best: "It all comes down to an individual moral judgement... you make the call."

Chet_F · 07-21-2003, 11:59 AM

"I was quite pleased with my purchase until it occured to me that this movie may very well be stolen."

IMHO you could say the same thing about buying a used car at a car lot. It is not your reponsibility to determine if said product is stolen. It is the resposibilty of the pawn shop and local or state government. The pawn shops I frequent are required to give a valid state drivers license in order to pawn. I also believe the pawn shops are required to wait a certain amount of days before they can put the pawned product on sale.

"There's a pawn shop near me that sells brand new DVDs (still in the shrinkwrap) for $10 each"

You definately have to wonder about these, but I have seen stranger things. For example I just picked up Gangs Of New York for $12 sealed. This is a 2 disc set of course. Out of curiousity I asked the seller. He stated that he has a friend who owns a convenience store and gets xx number of new DVDs each week for new releases. He then gets whatever is left after a few weeks at cost and sells them at the flea market. It's a crap shoot though. Sometimes they have extras sometimes they don't.

I guess I have a low moral code when it comes to flea markets or pawn shops. It is not my responsibilty to police said places. That's what I pay taxes for!

That's my view anyway.

Eric F · 07-21-2003, 12:06 PM

Quote:

IMHO you could say the same thing about buying a used car at a car lot. It is not your reponsibility to determine if said product is stolen. It is the resposibilty of the pawn shop and local or state government.

You might say that, but if you suspect it might be stolen then the onus is on you to do what's right. Even if you don't, if it's a stolen item and you find this out, it's your obligation to return it.

Jeff Kleist · 07-21-2003, 12:08 PM

Then he's losing $3. Cost on Gangs of New York is in the $15-18 range

Will_B · 07-21-2003, 12:20 PM

Quote:

Well I just bought "Gladiator" for 10 dollars Canadian (about 6 US) from a pawn shop and it's in MINT condition (VS maybe 26 dollars new). Totally perfect. I was quite pleased with my purchase until it occured to me that this movie may very well be stolen.

Not a concern around here, as the price of sealed "used" DVDs (sealed new product which appears to be overstock or whatever) is usually the same as (or even higher than) brand new sealed DVDs at retail. (Yeah, I said slightly higher. That's because most of the time the people at the used shops do not know what movies have had price cuts or were released cheap to start with. So I often find movies whi