Subdividing your pawn loan

/in

The other day, a customer came in with a problem that could have easily been avoided with a little forethought.

She had four pawn loans outstanding, each one a mixture of gold jewelry (chains, earrings, rings etc.). Each loan was for over a thousand dollar. That made her a big customer, since the average pawn loan – both at Kamaaina Loan and nationwide – is under $100. (Sometimes way under. While the woman was working out her problem, a man came in and took out a pawn loan for $3.)

Her loans were not only a miscellany of objects. She had mixed items of sentimental value – “things I treasure,” she described them – with common jewelry of no special significance.

As sometimes happens, the customer did not have enough money to redeem all her pawns, or even to redeem one and extend the other three (which would have required less money now). She was faced with losing at least one bag of jewelry.

She could have stood that, she said, if she could have let the common stuff go and kept the treasures. Her problem was, the treasures were mixed in with the ordinary.

If she had had some extra cash, a resolution would have been simple: She could have redeemed one, taken out the treasure, then pawned the rest back for cash to repeat the sequence with the next.

She wanted to go into each bag and pull out the treasures, compensating us for that value. Unfortunately, the pawn contract doesn’t allow that.

It has to be closed out and returned to the customer, who can then re-pawn if she wants.

The simple precaution, if you are presenting both treasures and common goods, is to have the treasures written up as separate pawns. Then, if your expectations of being able to redeem don’t quite pan out, you can redeem the treasures and let the rest go.

A campaign high point

/in

Every campaign deserves a memorable hula, and kumu hula Patrick Makuakane delivers with the “Birth Certificate Hula.” If you follow the link, you’ll hear him say he was born at Kapiolani maternity just a couple days apart from Barack Obama.

The line “drunk in a taxi” is good.

Performance before enthusiastic audience here: http://littlegreenfootballs.com/page/288532_Birth_Certificate_Hula_-_Na_Le

Patrick Makuakane

Photo by Kathleen Bender

Things you’d rather do on Lanai

/in ,
Wrecked yacht from Inside Bay Area

Wrecked yacht from Inside Bay Area

Get dumped in the ocean when your $8-million America’s Cup sailboat crashes.

However, it did happen in San Francisco Bay. Brrrr.

Well, that’s another reason Lanai island owner Larry Ellison won’t be having his Oracle yacht team practicing off Lanai. No boat.

This isn’t the first time one of Ellison’s boats has crashed. In 2011, it happened off San Diego.

Bloomberg News has video of what $8 million worth of highest-tech sailboat looks like after it stumbles:

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/-8m-oracle-yacht-meets-disaster-again-near-san-fran-vKOYYntaQAiI9qvexax08Q.html

Boat captain Jimmy Spithill said, ” There’s no question this is a setback.”

D’ja think?

Let Rick and the gang do it

/in

A columnist at the Washington Times gives10 reasons why Rick and the rest of the Pawn Stars should moderate the political debate.

Reason Number 6: The “old man” would let the participants know they are boring by nodding off.

And the winnah . . . is dead

/in

Yum!And wait till you hear what he won.

According to WESH.com in Florida:

Broward County authorities say the winner of a roach eating contest died shortly after eating dozens of roaches and worms.

He won a python. But he never got to enjoy it.

We are not making this up: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49335646/

 

 

A gold rush in Ghana

/in ,

A miner from a 19th century gold rush

According to Bloomberg News, Chinese miners have http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-08/ghana-s-gold-sparks-conflict-with-illegal-chinese-miners.html rushed to Ghana. Just as with American 49ers in California, the environmental results are not pretty.

Ghana is Africa’s second-largest gold producer. It was the original “Gold Coast” that Europeans ventured to 500 years ago, looking for the source of the gold dust that showed up in Morocco and Algeria after being carried across the Sahara on camels.

And as in California 160 years ago, the rush is violent:

In July, Chinese men mining near the village of Manso-Nsiana fired warning shots when residents protested their presence, Koffi said. He couldn’t confirm a report published in Accra’s state-owned Daily Graphic newspaper in July that two Chinese nationals have been killed this year in a mining dispute.

Credit score shenanigans

/in ,

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (according to a http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-25/consumers-given-different-credit-scores-than-lenders-cfpb-says.html report by Bloomberg News) has found that in about one case out of 5, your credit score that one of the credit rating agencies tells you is not the same as the score they tell a lender you have.

The story does not say whether the scores given to creditors are usually lower than the same person’s score given to a lender, but the implication is that that is the case:

Specifically, the bureau found that one in five consumers would likely receive a ‘meaningfully different’ score than their lender, potentially resulting in harm to those consumers. At the same time, consumers are unlikely to know about the discrepancy

The story continues:

‘Consumers who have reviewed their own score may expect a certain price from a lender, may waste time and effort applying for loans they are not qualified for, or may accept offers that are worse than they could get,’ according to the study.

 

Of course, if you come to Kamaaina Loan, we won’t ask your credit score, and you’ll qualify for a pawn loan on exactly the same basis as everybody else, whether you are a zillionaire hocking a gold Rolex or a construction worker between jobs raising gas money on his (temporarily unneeded) air compressor.

 

 

 

 

First Portugal, now Gold selling sweeps Italy

/in , , ,

Gold Selling in ItalyA few days ago, we linked to a report that in Portugal, out-of-work citizens have sold almost all their gold. Now, another report says that in Italy, the people also are liquidating their gold jewelry because of hard times.

Reuters: “Times are now so tough that Valerio Novelli, a ticket inspector on Rome’s buses, is planning to sell his old gold teeth.

” ‘I can’t get to the end of the month without running up debts,’ said Novelli, 56, who has to support an ex-wife and daughter. ‘I know I won’t get much, but I need the money .’ “

The story goes on to detail warnings that you have read about on this blog already: That the rise in the price of gold has brought in untrustworthy new gold buyers (in Italy, allegedly connected with the Mafia).

Italians are traditionally collectors of gold: christening, birthday and other gifts are often gold jewelry.

When times get hard, the gold gets sold. It’s hard, but when people get to that point, just think how much assistance they’d get from a bank.

Join us and be on reality TV

/in , , , ,

All our customers, old and new, and friends are invited to take part in filming of a “sizzle” episode of a reality TV series based on pawnbrokers (wonder where that idea came from?).

A Mainland production crew will be on North Market Street Thursday and Friday, Sept. 6 & 7. And, if the action warrants it, on Saturday, Sept. 8, too.

So bring your most interesting, unique and outrageous items down and let one of our professionals review it for a pawn or a sale.

This show is completely unscripted. The producer tells us, what he sees, he tapes.

There will be video releases, so if you don’t want to be famous, we won’t force it on you. But we are anticipating a fun two days, and maybe many more if the show goes into series production.

Show your Maui spirit and be a star!

Or, if you are a regular customer, just come down and be regular. Kamaaina Loan will be in normal operation during the taping.

Oh, bee-have!

/in

This bumblebee could not be disturbed