Is It O.K. to Buy a TV From a Pawnshop?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/07/magazine/is-it-ok-to-buy-a-tv-from-a-pawnshop.html

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Money isn’t an object; I could easily go to a big-box store. However, purchasing something used seems more environmentally friendly and frugal, and there are several pawnshops in my neighborhood. On the one hand, it seems exploitative to participate in this industry. I don’t want my good price to come at the expense of someone who needs a quick infusion of cash. On the other hand, it would be presumptuous to assume that whoever sold the item in the first place isn’t acting in their own best interest. You could argue that I am indirectly providing an opportunity for someone to sell something if they could use the cash. Of course, if the owner were disreputable and the TV had been stolen, this would be unethical. But I don’t know the reputations of the specific pawnshops in my neighborhood and wouldn’t want to make unwarranted assumptions. Adam Schneider

For environmental reasons, the habit of frugality is indeed a virtue worth cultivating. And you’ve touched on the main questions here: In patronizing a pawnshop, are you helping sustain a system that exploits the hard up or even abets thievery? As with many moral decisions in real life, much depends on what the facts are.

The likelihood that you’ll get a stolen television varies from place to place, because pawnshop regulations governing stolen goods vary by state and are mostly enforced by local police. Reputable pawnshops check the serial numbers of items against police databases of stolen goods and keep detailed records of sellers from whom they acquire articles. (Doing so is sometimes a matter of law.) This, by the way, is a reason to record serial numbers and report them to the police when something is stolen from you. Reducing the salability of stolen goods diminishes the incentive to steal.

More to the point, experts say that the vast majority of goods in pawnshops are not, in fact, stolen. Most come from owners who need modest sums of money quickly and may not be able to get a regular unsecured loan; some are brought by those who need the money more than the goods and can’t find a better place to sell them. Those sellers, of course, aren’t planning to recover their items.

If your TV was left as collateral by a person using the pawnshop for a loan, then there’s someone out there who wishes he or she had been able to pay the loan off. But given that the maximum rate of interest is fixed, where you live, by law, the cost of the loan is one that the representatives of your state have deemed reasonable (though doubtless under active lobbying from the pawnshop industry). If the rates are unfair, that’s the problem — not your decision to buy a TV. And, of course, the TV you don’t buy will likely be bought by someone else. Your absence from that marketplace will make no detectable difference to anyone but you.

Sometimes, though, ethics is not about consequences but about what kind of people we want to be. And there’s no doubt that pawnbrokers, like payday-loan companies, are in the business of making a living off people in difficulty. People who aren’t poor — who aren’t used to having to think about how to raise $200 — are more likely to go to a pawnshop to buy than to pawn. Still, for the poor and the “underbanked,” pawnshops can be a better deal than payday loans and the like. Default on a payday loan and you can end up drowning in fees and penalties, and with a ruined credit score. Get a loan from a pawnshop and you generally won’t pay as much in fees, your credit score won’t be affected and your losses are limited to the collateral you provided.

I said that ethics is sometimes about the kind of people we want to be. So let me add that we should want to be the kind of people who worry about those who need to borrow small sums and can’t get credit without pawning their goods. The way to make things better in that respect is to help improve the circumstances of the least well off. Wherever you buy it, there will be many people on your television with ideas about how to do that. Some might be worth listening to.

My grown daughter’s best friend of more than 15 years comes from a family scarred across three generations by suicide, underemployment, drug addiction, sexual abuse, denial and delusional get-rich-quick schemes. Her father committed suicide when she was young. Her mother, with whom she has had a stormy relationship, has cancer and refuses to discuss it — in fact refused, at least for a while, even to treat it except by diet.

My daughter’s friend has always been volatile, impulsive, inclined to risky behavior, creative and compassionate. She has struggled with substance abuse over the years.

I am not supposed to know the family history except the nature of the father’s death. My daughter and the friend have forbidden me to speak of the mother’s illness, because the mother has forbidden her daughter to tell anyone. The mother and I were friends of sorts, although I stopped spending time with her; I decided it was too taxing to be around anyone in the family (except my daughter’s friend).

Do I go to the mother and urge her to have an honest conversation with her daughter about the status of her disease? The daughter is afraid to ask. Bear in mind that the mother has almost certainly not been honest with herself about it. She operates on the premise that peace circles and “The Secret” hold the solution to all of life’s challenges. Would my intervention do my daughter’s friend any good? Name Withheld

It would be a good thing, I agree, if the mother would have a candid conversation about the status of her disease with her daughter. But perhaps a more pressing problem is the mother’s reluctance to get proper medical help, which has put at risk her health and survival prospects. If you and she had the kind of relationship that would allow you to guide her to constructive counseling, you would be able to do her, and her daughter, an important service. But you don’t have a strong existing bond with this woman; you say you’ve been avoiding her and her family, except for your daughter’s friend. And you’re not an expert in medical counseling yourself. Can you think of someone else who is better placed to intervene? Would you have more luck persuading the daughter to force the issue with her mother?

In the meantime, there are things to be done directly for the daughter, whatever her mother decides to do. Most obviously, you and your own daughter might try to convince her to face up to her substance abuse and join a group that could help her stop. Your daughter’s friendship may be a resource here, strengthened by a relationship with you. But none of this will be easy. Navigating the shoals with both mother and daughter will depend on responding sensitively to the complex realities of their messy lives.

My mother died recently, and while going through her things, I contacted a friend and offered my mother’s collection of books to him at no cost. I just received a phone call from my friend saying that one of the books is actually a signed first-edition biography of a historic politician. I had no idea of its worth and the friend researched its value. He offered to return the book to me or sell it on my behalf. I do not think he wants to be financially compensated. But if he sells it for me, should I give him a portion of the selling price? Or perhaps a finder’s fee? If so, what would be a fair amount? The selling price of the book would probably be around $500. Name Withheld

Your friend could easily have sold the book without your knowing and pocketed the full amount. So he’s evidently motivated not by money but by a generous sense of fairness and good will. He figures you wouldn’t have given away the book had you realized its financial value. (Most books have very little.) You might just assure him that he’s free to sell it and keep the proceeds. Otherwise, tell him you’d at least like to pay him a finder’s fee of whatever amount he thought sounded right. But be prepared for him to decline either arrangement.