If you have never used a pawn shop before then this may be a question that you have for yourself.
How exactly is it that pawn shops pay you when they make a loan for you, or buy something out right from you?
Do they write you a check?
Or do they give you cash?
Or perhaps they give you store credit?
The fact of the matter is that most pawnshops, make that pretty much all pawnshops, will pay you in cash on the spot for any transactions that you do there.
That is the function of a pawn shop; to get you fast access to quick emergency cash when you need it, such as when an unexpected expense arises, or other emergency situation that requires your attention.
It really wouldn’t make sense for a pawn shop to pay you any other way under those circumstances.
That having been said I have seen some pawnshops do something that I consider to be a little sneaky and perhaps even a little dishonest.
The fact of the matter is that most pawn shops will offer more than one service, and in the case of some pawn shops they even offer check-cashing.
When you go into a pawn shop to make a loan on something or sell something you can almost always bet that you will get cash on the spot for that transaction. If the sale or loan is very large, thousands of dollars for instance, then the pawn shop might offer to give you a check that you can take to the bank instead so that you don’t become a victim of theft at a later point in time.
So Is There A Problem With That
No of course there is no problem with a small business owner offering as many services as possible to his customers.
Pawn customers and check-cashing customers are very much alike in many ways and will often times have many of the same needs.
Because of that, it makes sense for a store to combine both services.
However there is a trick that I see out there that some pawn shops will pull that I don’t consider to be the most ethical practice.
This little trick is where a pawn shop may offer you a check for the agreed-upon value of your loan. If you need cash they then might turn around and charge you to cash that check.
I don’t view that is something that is reasonable at all. Thankfully very few pawnshops will do that, as in less than .25% I would say – it’s really not something that you are going to have to worry about most of the time.
You have to keep in mind that most pawn shops don’t offer check-cashing to begin with. So there is no game that they’re trying to play on any kind of large scale.
It’s really only the very few that I’ve seen do this. Typically speaking you are going to have absolutely nothing to worry about.
Cash On The Spot From The Pawn Shop
After all when we’re talking about the needs of the customers that a pawn shop serves, only cash on the spot makes sense now doesn’t?
For very large loans, typically those in the thousands of dollars, it might not be uncommon for a pawn shop to offer you a check as opposed to cash.
However in these cases that will often be because the pawn shop simply doesn’t want you to risk having to walk out of their establishment with a lot of cash as that could make you a target for theft.
If you have a check, it is much less likely that somebody will attempt to steal it than if it were a huge sum of cash and this is merely a safety measure as opposed to anything at all underhanded.
Under these circumstances you can expect that sort of thing, and there is no game being played.
