October 28, 2023 • 28 mins
How does pawnbroking work? How do they know what goods are stolen? Do pawnbrokers deal with shady characters?
I have so many questions to ask Matt about his experience working in pawnbroking stores. We find out about the time the store puchased thousands of dollars worth of gold for fifty dollars and the time a customer became threatening when he found out his stolen items were in the store.
Matt's superpower is bargaining and he lets us in on how he scores discounts.
Strap yourself in as we delve into the world of pawn!
I have so many questions to ask Matt about his experience working in pawnbroking stores. We find out about the time the store puchased thousands of dollars worth of gold for fifty dollars and the time a customer became threatening when he found out his stolen items were in the store.
Matt's superpower is bargaining and he lets us in on how he scores discounts.
Strap yourself in as we delve into the world of pawn!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Hey, you're back. You're listeningto Jamie's Club. I'm so glad that
you hear it. Maybe you're notback, maybe this is the first thing
you're ever listening to. In thati'd say congratulations on finding what I think
is a pretty good podcast. Butif you're returning, thanks for doing that.
And I want to let you knowthat you could really help me out
by rating my podcast to the maximumstars you can on the platform that you're
(00:28):
listening to this on, even multipleplatforms. You want to go over and
above, that'd be awesome. Butif you don't want to do that,
I understand, and we're still friends. And as long as you're listening to
the show, that alone is ahuge help to me. So when thinking
about the types of people that Iwant to have on my show, I
was thinking about the fact that Ispeak to a lot of people who are
(00:50):
at the top of their fields,or they're in the public eye somewhat or
maybe a little bit, or perhapsjust in certain circles. But then there
are other people that just do regularjobs in industries that I don't know anything
about or I know very little about, and I'm curious about how things work.
And that's why I was absolutely pumpedto catch up with an old friend
(01:11):
of mine, Matthew Malaysia. Nowhe worked at more than one pawn store.
That's pawn before you think I neededto rate this episode eighteen plus.
Now it's pawn as in secondhand dealers, and I want to know. I
want to know the stories. Iwant to know what goes down in the
shop. I want to know howthey identify stolen goods from legitimate goods.
(01:37):
Are there any shady characters around?These are the kind of things that I
want to know, and well,hopefully that picks your curiosity as well.
So when I started talking with Matt, I started out asking him about how
he thinks people perceived him when hewas known as a guy who worked in
a secondhand dealer aka porn store.One of the things that I used to
(02:01):
struggle with is I don't think there'sanything that's interesting about me. So generally,
when you know, you'd go tojob interviews or stuff like that and
they'd be like, you know,tell us something interesting about you. The
funny in me would be like,I used to work in porn, and
you know, if you had agood look at me, then you'd realize
why that would be funny. Butyeah, like one of the big I
(02:24):
guess misconceptions I got a lot waswhat's porn broking? Like? Is a
dodgy you know that must be youknow a lot of dodgy people things like
that, And these these are thequestions, These are the things that people
want to know about, I think, and these are the questions I have.
Well anyway, So I don't knowif everyone else has got the same
(02:46):
questions or not. A lot ofit was with the pawn broking because of
my dad. It was something thatI grew up with. So I my
parents' divorced when I was really young. I can't remember. It would have
been around pre primary to year onekind of thing. I didn't see him
(03:07):
for a long time because of that. So when I did, you know,
there was the occasional visits stuff likethat, and that was like one
of the things we used to do. So when my nan nanny lived in
Freemantle and he lived with her,one of the things would do is just
(03:27):
go down to the second nd storebecause that's what he loved. He loved
He was a bargainer, you know, he was that classic you know bargainer
through and through that love getting abargain when you think of porn breaking in
the people that loved to go inthere because they loved the nature of second
end goods. He was just oneof those persons. So I grew up
like thinking that. I thought,you know, this would be a good
(03:50):
career to get into it. Somethinghe loved. You know, maybe I
can love it too. So yeah, interesting. So you would have gone
to op shops and things with yourdad, not just not just second hand
dealers or what we're gone around thechurch garage sales. Oh yeah, there
would have been a lot of garagecars. But I think mainly it was
just cash converters. That was Ithink that was his thing. Like he
(04:14):
knew the people there, so heliked going there. They would obviously,
like he built this relationship with them, and they would then you know,
I assume respected him. He respectedthem, and they would get a good
deal in return. So it primarilyI think it was just a lot of
Yeah, cash converters. Really thatwas the only thing in w A right,
(04:36):
really your minor ones here and there. But yeah, I want to
tell you about one of the firstmemories that I have of meeting you and
you probably you probably wouldn't even rememberthis, but we were at a We're
at a high stakes poker game,and we're there and I'm seeing you in
the hand. You're analyzing and takingapart what the other person has. You
(04:56):
basically said what cards were in theirhands, not seen them yet. And
at the same time you were sellinga mobile phone to someone else on the
table. You made the deal forthe mobile phone stake and won the pot
with significant amount of cash in it. So and I thought, this guy,
this guy is amazing. He's amagician. You know. My one
(05:19):
of my biggest motos lately is fakeit till you make it, so pawn
broking, right, tell me aboutit. So to me, I'm curious
on how it works. Right,my perception is that it's a store where
you're walking with your stuff and theywant to give you as little money as
possible to get to get your stuffoff you and then flip it for a
(05:45):
massive margin profit. That's that's myimpression. Yeah, that's the idea,
right, Like any company wants tobuy any product for as little as possible
and make you know, the mostmargin, which is yeah, like hard
to I guess grasp with when you'retrying to do the best by the business,
but you also know that you knowthese people are in need and also
(06:09):
do need the best deal that theycan get kind of thing. Yeah,
but so yeah, in I guessstandard terms porn breaking is you got your
buyers your loans. So your loansare for three months, which you get
charged interest on. If you don'tpick up the item within the three month
(06:33):
period, that's when the item canthen go out for sale. So that's
the loan side of things. There'sbuying, which we buy your goods on
the spot, which from memory hada two week grace period, which meant
(06:54):
it had to sit out the backfor two weeks. I believe it could
be a week or two weeks.Because at the end of each day,
anything that you buy in that storehas to be it's recorded in the system.
At the end of the day,you have to then send it to
the police via a program so thenthey can then match up that to any
(07:16):
police report. If those details werenot sent at the end of the day
doesn't matter for whatever reason. Youknow, obviously you could argue the power
went out whatever, But for whateverreason, if it wasn't sent instant,
fine, you know, oh,okay, could have been. Dollars could
have been. That's what I mean. That's why when I say people have
(07:41):
this opinion of it being dodgy,I will admit there is dodgy like things
that happen, dodgy people that comethrough trying to self stolen goods. But
the system is there to try andprevent it because no, you go,
you go. Yeah. The reasonis so within that two weeks there's an
(08:03):
opportunity for you know, someone stoleit that day, there's an opportunity for
the police report. You know,people do that and then the details match
up and then they get the itemback. The pawn brokers lose out because
they lose the item and the moneythat you've given to that customer. That's
why they want to follow the rules, because if you don't follow the rules
(08:28):
or the law of the government,there's penalties and there's loss. Right.
But I mean, even if they'vedone the right thing and someone has sold
them something that's stolen and it getsfound, then they're out that money.
That's it. Yeah, Is therean insurance for that? Can they claim
that? Not? As far asI know, It's just a loss.
(08:48):
It's part of doing the business.I guess, well, I guess that
makes sense, and why you wouldhave to have a fair bit of margin
built in then, because you've gotto account for those items that you're going
to give money away for that youjust aren't going to have. Yeah,
well then how would they know?Right if you say, someone's broken to
your shared and they stole your whippersnipper and it's like whipp a snipper sold
(09:11):
it the pawn brokers, Yeah,how do they know it's yours? How
do they know which one's which.That's where it gets a bit I guess
tedious, and generally people don't generallyhave that experience until something's happened and they
you know, things have been stolenfrom them. But people generally put like
(09:31):
they engrave markings like a name ora serio number, because when you buy
the item, you have to describeit in as much detail as possible and
also put on any markings at all. You know, if there's on the
fuel tank of the lawnmower, there'sa red dot spread on it, you
(09:52):
put that in the details. Becausethat's the system to help identify stolen goods
and to help I guess, facilitatethat or governor. In the second ND
industry, you get audited every sooften. They will show up no notice.
(10:13):
You have to comply with everything,which is good because then you don't
have time to hide things. Ifso, they will pick random items.
They'll be like, I want tolook at this jewelry or I want to
look at this laptop or something likethat. If there's a serial number on
there and it doesn't match the system, you either didn't put it or you
(10:35):
missed it. Buy one number,you know, genuine human error. Fine
straight away. If they ordered tenitems, ten fines for each. So
they are doing as much as theycan possible to put as much information there.
So if there is an instance wherepeople did steal this item, then
(10:56):
it's complying with the police. Yeah, it's got to be got to be
a tricky situation when say someone breaksin and say took my PlayStation. Yeah,
there's nothing special about my PlayStation.It's not different to anyone else's.
Yeah, you're not going to rememberthe serial number. No, I remember
(11:18):
the feat of twenty three that Ileft in there though that I'm just feeling
about the game that are part waythrough. I'll be like, check the
saved games. If there's a GTAwith a guy wearing it five hundred hours,
Yeah, five hundred hours and he'sgot five hundred million on him.
(11:39):
That's mine, that's mine. Iwant to back. But if it's if
it's a nondescript kind of item,is it? I mean, how is
that going to the police. Wouldn'thave time to chase up every single item,
right if you just got a PlayStationin it's I imagine there's a lot
that falls through the cracks. There'salso a lot of people that don't even
record that they've been broken into.That's why a lot of the time you
(12:01):
get people coming in and saying,you know, I've just been broken into
recently. Can I have a lookaround? It's like, well, yes
you can. But one, ifwe did buy those items, they will
be out in the back and noteven on the showroom yet. Two that's
why it's best to do a policereport, because if you do have items
(12:24):
in there that are you know,of significance, then hopefully they'll pick that
up. Okay, Yeah. Itseems to me like you have to be
an expert and a lot of thingsto work in this business, right,
because if someone brought in, say, let's say, a Louis Baton bag.
How do you know that that's areal Louis Vaton bag? Right?
You're going to have to get thatauthenticated or are you doing that in the
(12:48):
shop. I think it's weird orlike difficult as well, because when you're
from w A, you know,Amanda rocking m the ancient thought in your
head is that's not Louis for tombag? Who has them around you?
You know kind of thing you justgotta go off, like your experience and
what you know, I guess,and just anything item you just look on
(13:11):
Google. I just googled everything.For example, I bought a I think
someone else bought a gold coin oncefrom the shop, and I was looking
at this gold coin. We boughtit for like fifty dollars. We're gonna
put it out for like one hundreddollars. And this probably was a stolen
item, because once I tell thestory, it's gonna make a lot more
sorry, stolen item. Once Itell it, it's going to make a
(13:33):
lot more sense. So we boughtit for fifty dollars, we're gonna put
it out for one hundred dollars.And I'm looking at this coin, I'm
like it's heavy, it looks likegold. Everything inside of me was telling
me this is a gold coin andif that's pure gold, that's worth a
(13:54):
lot of money. So I googledit and it was like a ninety sevent
year old specific coin. I wasthat confident that I just kept googling and
I found like a similar coin thatI couldn't match, like information like word
for word. But the information Ifound on Google was this is a solid
(14:18):
gold coin. It looked the samethe weight, because there was three different
coins. One was gold, onewas brass, one was another material.
The weight for this one matched upwith the gold one that I found on
the internet. So long story short, I get this coin checked out.
It was a solid gold coin thatwas worth like two three thousand dollars fifty
(14:39):
bucks. That had that stolen.I had had to be because yeah,
because the person wanted to come inhad these coins and said, you know,
I just want whatever for him.And because I couldn't find it was
so hard for me to find thatinformation. That's why I guess slipped through
the cracks because no one knew whereto look. The knowledge for coin dealers
(15:03):
wasn't there kind of thing. Sowhoever bought. It was like, yeah,
we'll take a risk on this.We'll give you fifty dollars or whatever.
Yeah, you know, maybe someonewill buy it, and yeah,
just ended up being worth all.They didn't know what that had, that
could have been from, They couldhave inherited it. I don't know the
conversation that happened when it was sold. Yeah, it could have been stolen.
(15:28):
The I overthink and I go like, worst case scenario, So I
believe it was stolen. But yeah, well that's just your instinct kicking in.
It's just like a feeling. Yeah, and probably the fact that the
person had, you know, awooden leg and an eyepatch and a parrot
on their shoulder might have given away. Yeah. I just don't know anyone
(15:50):
else is carrying gold double loons around. But yeah, it was. It
was a weird one, but yeah, interesting diget discount at places he tried.
Do you try and haggle? Doyou use it now every day?
Line don't like doing it. Butso for example where haggling really helped me.
(16:11):
I was out Crown Casino and itgot to like four, I am
no train is going end of thenight. When you've been drinking, you
just want to go home, andthe taxis are like one hundred hundred and
twenty dollars right, oh yeah,very long way to go. So I
said, you know what, Iwant to get home. Now, let's
(16:34):
see what we can do. Yeah. So I went to the first taxi
driver. I said how much secrethover? He goes eighty dollars flat rain.
Yeah, okay, that's not bad. I can do better. At
this point, there's twenty taxis right. See, you've got an anchor price.
(16:56):
Now is that what you call it? Yes? Yeah. So I
went to the next taxi seventy dollars. I'm like, ah, we're getting
better. I think you can dobetter. So went to the next one
because this taxi driver's seeing me walkingup to the other ones in front of
him, and this one said seventyand he goes how much did he say?
(17:19):
I go sixty and he goes,all right, I'll do it for
fifty. I'm like, huh,that's nice. Yeah, let's do it.
Oh, I got my three mateshome. I got me in my
homies home for a good price.I won that night. I bargained,
well that was good. You knowwhat. I once worked with the guy
(17:41):
and this has stuck with me mywhole life. Right, this guy NAMEDA
and I'll never ever forget him.He always said he would bargain for anything
and everything, No shame, didn'tcare. There was a cafe a couple
of doors down from where we worked. He paid two dollars per coffee when
everyone else was paying like four dollarsfour fifty. Right, he was just
(18:06):
on a corporate He asked him fora corporate rate. We worked in a
bookshop. It wasn't we're not acorporation, but he got it. The
parking that we all paid for,and he had the guys talk down to
give him like half price parking allday. I've never seen this guy pay
full price for anything. And hesaid to me one day, and I
(18:27):
want you to take these wise wordsfrom was and live by them. He
said, it's free to ask.And I've kept that and so many times.
And I was embarrassed at first,and now I've gotten so used to
it. You kind of get youget less embarrassed the more you do it.
I'll ask for a deal at places, and even when I'm willing to
(18:48):
pay full price, it's just likeask the question, and sometimes they'll go
sure, and It's like you wouldhave been willing to pay the full price,
but now now you've got twenty bucksoff, fifty bucks off. If
it's four dollars, I'll keep fourdollars instead of instead of not keeping four
dollars, right, So you know, mate? Was it like the social
(19:10):
anxiety me in me is like,you know, I can't just go around
asking for a deal everywhere. I'mgoing to look like an idiot, like
a dickhead, you know kind ofthing. But if you just the confidence,
and if you joke about it,if that's your way of doing it,
you know, joke about it's like, oh, surely you can do
better than that. Again, it'sfree to ask. You never know what's
(19:32):
gonna happen, and you're going tolaugh it off after exactly, And if
they say noll, you were goingto bite it. Anyway, just pay
the full price and go well,at least I asked. That's the question.
I've lost nothing out of it.No, I think it is a
good value. It's free to ask. I reckon, I should get that
put in a T shirt. It'sfree to ask. Hey, you know,
you know now in the in theporn breaker bosiness, it must be
(19:53):
so much easier with Google lens.So much stuff now I just don't know.
I don't know what something's worth.Click Google lens brings up a ton
of listings easy as it would havebeen a handy tool for you back in
the day round I would have everything. You know that that coin you take
(20:15):
your picture of the coin. Yes, so I went from pawnbroking, left
there, got a few month gigat cash converters. Oh yeah, the
actual proper branded store. Yeah,yep. So I saw the corporate I
guess side of things, which wasa lot different because in the other one,
because it was like a small business, you know, startup. I
(20:36):
did everything the bookkeeping for the loans, on the finance side, buying and
selling. I even did collections.At one point, I even went to
random people's houses because they were behindon their advances, you know, trying
to get some kind of agreement orlike they said, you around to bang
on someone's front door and threaten tobreak their knee. Apps pretty much.
(21:02):
Nah. I did have another guywith me, like another worker. But
yeah, that's a scary as helljob. Yeah. Oh and there was
a time I got threatened. Yeah, so I So I worked in themandrus
or by myself and well a storyabout stolen goods and why I guess the
(21:25):
system is important. Okay, sothis was back in the startup one,
not the cash Converters branded one.Yeah what happened. Yeah, so this
friend to this person sold his jewelryex girlfriend girlfriend, you know something where
he didn't want it to go throughlike I guess, legal channels. Yeah,
(21:48):
he came in, knew the itemswere there, said I want my
stuff back, which you know fairenough. I'm an understanding person. This
person is coming in, he's beenbetrayed. He I think he was even
offering to pay to get the itemsback without hassle. And as a person
that doesn't know about the business,you can understand why you think that would
(22:10):
be easily possible. You know,let's do this, no hassel, right,
I'll give you what you paid forit, you don't lose. I
get my stuff back, I'll getthe money off the other person. Problem
is it doesn't shouldn't work like thatby laws. So long story short,
he became aggressive, was threatening,wouldn't leave. I was in a pickle
(22:33):
because I had no one there tosupport me, and I didn't want to
do the wrong thing because I don'thave a panic button under the desk something.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure I pressedit so many times. I just
had no response for hours. Theywere busy that day. I don't know.
So what should have happened is becauseif we bought that item and wasn't
on loan, those items are alreadysent to the police register, so they
(22:55):
know that we have those items inthat location. If we give them this
person these items, we're gonna receivea fine and your secondhand pawnbroker's licenses on
the line. Right. It's ascary thing. They were building this business.
If I lost that, they wouldhave lost the whole business. Yeah,
your whole livelihood, it's gone.Yeah, you can understand why you
(23:17):
need to follow the rules. Butwhat we had to do because we would
you police just couldn't do anything.I couldn't get any support for a while.
The guy just was refusing to leave. We had to break the rules.
We sold the items back to him. We gave it back to him,
which I believe was the right thingto do. And you had to
be careful of your own safety,like this guy was gonna do something to
(23:41):
you in the shop, Like youdon't know, I don't think my defensive
skills are very good. Who knowsfight to fight mode to find out.
But you know from past experience,I'm probably on the losing end. You
were the guy they sent around topick up the debts. Yeah, finally
that And that's where it's hard,because you know to do the wrong thing,
but you want to do the rightthing. Is it is that karma?
(24:03):
Do you do you believe in?Do you believe in karma in?
Yeah? I think so. Anyway, I don't know your own version of
it. I believe in conspiracy theories. I think it would be a cool
idea that the Pyramids were landing podspads for spaceships. But do you think
they will? I want to believeit. I think it would be cool.
(24:23):
That's the problem. Do you believein ghosts? But then I'll have
moments where like I'll think, somethingweird that happened? Was that a ghost?
Just do we land on the moon? The Transformers did, that's for
sure. Again, the topic thatI don't have a lot of knowledge in.
(24:45):
I don't know. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. You know.
A big fan of stargat and allthat, I like the idea of
something being out there. Okay,do I believe or not? I don't
know, but I think it's acool concept. Like there's a you and
me in another planet. You know, are you talking about like, are
you talking about multiverse? Now?I think I started a tangent where I
(25:07):
was talking about both. That's that'sa whole that's a whole other episode multiverse
theory. We live an infinite numberof dimensions that are just you know,
degrees away from this. That manyalternate realities. But I'm glad I'm in
this one with you, Jamie.Thanks man. I appreciate that I wanted
to leave with the remembering the wordsof Waza. Yes, free to ask,
(25:33):
go for a discount, do it, give it a crack, do
it tomorrow, do it on thenext thing you buy. That's so,
that's the best advice I can thinkof if I made you, if I
asked, why are you asking that? So? I'm living the wad alife.
Baby was that told me? Blamehim? That was previous pawnbroker and
all around good guy, Matthew Malaysyand so good to catch up with him
(25:56):
after so many years. And Iwas thinking about the fact that he's got
this bargaining skill. Now he's gotthis bartering talent that he's acquired or perhaps
improved through his previous occupation, andI was thinking about the fact that I've
probably got some of these. Duringthe mid nineties to the mid two thousands,
(26:21):
I did all kinds of random jobsbecause I was a semi employed actor,
and I'd do anything sort of inbetween acting gigs just to pay the
bills. And I worked for alittle as a lighting retailer, selling residential
and commercial lighting products. And nowthe skill that I've got is that I
can walk into someone's house and tellimmediately if they've got cheaper, expensive lighting,
(26:45):
and I guess how good the lightingis. I've got a good sense
of that. Friends of mine hada fluorescent light that wouldn't turn on properly.
I diagnosed that the starter, whichis this tiny little module worth a
couple of dollars, was the wrongsize for it. And they thought that
I was some kind of genius fixingtheir lighting. But it was just those
(27:07):
old retail skills paying off. Probablynot a skill that's going to get me
my own Marvel comic book series,but a skill. Nonetheless. I was
a waiter for a time a singingwaiter in a theater restaurant, and the
skill that I got there was theability to carry multiple plates in a very
dexterous manner. So well, that'sallowed me to be lazy now in life
(27:32):
because I can carry three four platesfrom the kitchen into the lund room all
in one go, not having tomake multiple trips. Again, not quite
a superpower, but a nice littleskill to have and something that I'm probably
never going to forget. And hey, now I know I've banged on about
this a bit, but liking theshow, rating it to the maximum stars
does help me out. Also,if you could share one of my shows
(27:56):
that you like on your social media, we might be able to gather some
new listeners. I'd be super appreciativeof that because I guess word of mouth
recommendation from you would mean a lotto me. So thanks for joining me
today on Jamie's Club.
Hey, you're back. You're listeningto Jamie's Club. I'm so glad that
you hear it. Maybe you're notback, maybe this is the first thing
you're ever listening to. In thati'd say congratulations on finding what I think
is a pretty good podcast. Butif you're returning, thanks for doing that.
And I want to let you knowthat you could really help me out
by rating my podcast to the maximumstars you can on the platform that you're
(00:28):
listening to this on, even multipleplatforms. You want to go over and
above, that'd be awesome. Butif you don't want to do that,
I understand, and we're still friends. And as long as you're listening to
the show, that alone is ahuge help to me. So when thinking
about the types of people that Iwant to have on my show, I
was thinking about the fact that Ispeak to a lot of people who are
(00:50):
at the top of their fields,or they're in the public eye somewhat or
maybe a little bit, or perhapsjust in certain circles. But then there
are other people that just do regularjobs in industries that I don't know anything
about or I know very little about, and I'm curious about how things work.
And that's why I was absolutely pumpedto catch up with an old friend
(01:11):
of mine, Matthew Malaysia. Nowhe worked at more than one pawn store.
That's pawn before you think I neededto rate this episode eighteen plus.
Now it's pawn as in secondhand dealers, and I want to know. I
want to know the stories. Iwant to know what goes down in the
shop. I want to know howthey identify stolen goods from legitimate goods.
(01:37):
Are there any shady characters around?These are the kind of things that I
want to know, and well,hopefully that picks your curiosity as well.
So when I started talking with Matt, I started out asking him about how
he thinks people perceived him when hewas known as a guy who worked in
a secondhand dealer aka porn store.One of the things that I used to
(02:01):
struggle with is I don't think there'sanything that's interesting about me. So generally,
when you know, you'd go tojob interviews or stuff like that and
they'd be like, you know,tell us something interesting about you. The
funny in me would be like,I used to work in porn, and
you know, if you had agood look at me, then you'd realize
why that would be funny. Butyeah, like one of the big I
(02:24):
guess misconceptions I got a lot waswhat's porn broking? Like? Is a
dodgy you know that must be youknow a lot of dodgy people things like
that, And these these are thequestions, These are the things that people
want to know about, I think, and these are the questions I have.
Well anyway, So I don't knowif everyone else has got the same
(02:46):
questions or not. A lot ofit was with the pawn broking because of
my dad. It was something thatI grew up with. So I my
parents' divorced when I was really young. I can't remember. It would have
been around pre primary to year onekind of thing. I didn't see him
(03:07):
for a long time because of that. So when I did, you know,
there was the occasional visits stuff likethat, and that was like one
of the things we used to do. So when my nan nanny lived in
Freemantle and he lived with her,one of the things would do is just
(03:27):
go down to the second nd storebecause that's what he loved. He loved
He was a bargainer, you know, he was that classic you know bargainer
through and through that love getting abargain when you think of porn breaking in
the people that loved to go inthere because they loved the nature of second
end goods. He was just oneof those persons. So I grew up
like thinking that. I thought,you know, this would be a good
(03:50):
career to get into it. Somethinghe loved. You know, maybe I
can love it too. So yeah, interesting. So you would have gone
to op shops and things with yourdad, not just not just second hand
dealers or what we're gone around thechurch garage sales. Oh yeah, there
would have been a lot of garagecars. But I think mainly it was
just cash converters. That was Ithink that was his thing. Like he
(04:14):
knew the people there, so heliked going there. They would obviously,
like he built this relationship with them, and they would then you know,
I assume respected him. He respectedthem, and they would get a good
deal in return. So it primarilyI think it was just a lot of
Yeah, cash converters. Really thatwas the only thing in w A right,
(04:36):
really your minor ones here and there. But yeah, I want to
tell you about one of the firstmemories that I have of meeting you and
you probably you probably wouldn't even rememberthis, but we were at a We're
at a high stakes poker game,and we're there and I'm seeing you in
the hand. You're analyzing and takingapart what the other person has. You
(04:56):
basically said what cards were in theirhands, not seen them yet. And
at the same time you were sellinga mobile phone to someone else on the
table. You made the deal forthe mobile phone stake and won the pot
with significant amount of cash in it. So and I thought, this guy,
this guy is amazing. He's amagician. You know. My one
(05:19):
of my biggest motos lately is fakeit till you make it, so pawn
broking, right, tell me aboutit. So to me, I'm curious
on how it works. Right,my perception is that it's a store where
you're walking with your stuff and theywant to give you as little money as
possible to get to get your stuffoff you and then flip it for a
(05:45):
massive margin profit. That's that's myimpression. Yeah, that's the idea,
right, Like any company wants tobuy any product for as little as possible
and make you know, the mostmargin, which is yeah, like hard
to I guess grasp with when you'retrying to do the best by the business,
but you also know that you knowthese people are in need and also
(06:09):
do need the best deal that theycan get kind of thing. Yeah,
but so yeah, in I guessstandard terms porn breaking is you got your
buyers your loans. So your loansare for three months, which you get
charged interest on. If you don'tpick up the item within the three month
(06:33):
period, that's when the item canthen go out for sale. So that's
the loan side of things. There'sbuying, which we buy your goods on
the spot, which from memory hada two week grace period, which meant
(06:54):
it had to sit out the backfor two weeks. I believe it could
be a week or two weeks.Because at the end of each day,
anything that you buy in that storehas to be it's recorded in the system.
At the end of the day,you have to then send it to
the police via a program so thenthey can then match up that to any
(07:16):
police report. If those details werenot sent at the end of the day
doesn't matter for whatever reason. Youknow, obviously you could argue the power
went out whatever, But for whateverreason, if it wasn't sent instant,
fine, you know, oh,okay, could have been. Dollars could
have been. That's what I mean. That's why when I say people have
(07:41):
this opinion of it being dodgy,I will admit there is dodgy like things
that happen, dodgy people that comethrough trying to self stolen goods. But
the system is there to try andprevent it because no, you go,
you go. Yeah. The reasonis so within that two weeks there's an
(08:03):
opportunity for you know, someone stoleit that day, there's an opportunity for
the police report. You know,people do that and then the details match
up and then they get the itemback. The pawn brokers lose out because
they lose the item and the moneythat you've given to that customer. That's
why they want to follow the rules, because if you don't follow the rules
(08:28):
or the law of the government,there's penalties and there's loss. Right.
But I mean, even if they'vedone the right thing and someone has sold
them something that's stolen and it getsfound, then they're out that money.
That's it. Yeah, Is therean insurance for that? Can they claim
that? Not? As far asI know, It's just a loss.
(08:48):
It's part of doing the business.I guess, well, I guess that
makes sense, and why you wouldhave to have a fair bit of margin
built in then, because you've gotto account for those items that you're going
to give money away for that youjust aren't going to have. Yeah,
well then how would they know?Right if you say, someone's broken to
your shared and they stole your whippersnipper and it's like whipp a snipper sold
(09:11):
it the pawn brokers, Yeah,how do they know it's yours? How
do they know which one's which.That's where it gets a bit I guess
tedious, and generally people don't generallyhave that experience until something's happened and they
you know, things have been stolenfrom them. But people generally put like
(09:31):
they engrave markings like a name ora serio number, because when you buy
the item, you have to describeit in as much detail as possible and
also put on any markings at all. You know, if there's on the
fuel tank of the lawnmower, there'sa red dot spread on it, you
(09:52):
put that in the details. Becausethat's the system to help identify stolen goods
and to help I guess, facilitatethat or governor. In the second ND
industry, you get audited every sooften. They will show up no notice.
(10:13):
You have to comply with everything,which is good because then you don't
have time to hide things. Ifso, they will pick random items.
They'll be like, I want tolook at this jewelry or I want to
look at this laptop or something likethat. If there's a serial number on
there and it doesn't match the system, you either didn't put it or you
(10:35):
missed it. Buy one number,you know, genuine human error. Fine
straight away. If they ordered tenitems, ten fines for each. So
they are doing as much as theycan possible to put as much information there.
So if there is an instance wherepeople did steal this item, then
(10:56):
it's complying with the police. Yeah, it's got to be got to be
a tricky situation when say someone breaksin and say took my PlayStation. Yeah,
there's nothing special about my PlayStation.It's not different to anyone else's.
Yeah, you're not going to rememberthe serial number. No, I remember
(11:18):
the feat of twenty three that Ileft in there though that I'm just feeling
about the game that are part waythrough. I'll be like, check the
saved games. If there's a GTAwith a guy wearing it five hundred hours,
Yeah, five hundred hours and he'sgot five hundred million on him.
(11:39):
That's mine, that's mine. Iwant to back. But if it's if
it's a nondescript kind of item,is it? I mean, how is
that going to the police. Wouldn'thave time to chase up every single item,
right if you just got a PlayStationin it's I imagine there's a lot
that falls through the cracks. There'salso a lot of people that don't even
record that they've been broken into.That's why a lot of the time you
(12:01):
get people coming in and saying,you know, I've just been broken into
recently. Can I have a lookaround? It's like, well, yes
you can. But one, ifwe did buy those items, they will
be out in the back and noteven on the showroom yet. Two that's
why it's best to do a policereport, because if you do have items
(12:24):
in there that are you know,of significance, then hopefully they'll pick that
up. Okay, Yeah. Itseems to me like you have to be
an expert and a lot of thingsto work in this business, right,
because if someone brought in, say, let's say, a Louis Baton bag.
How do you know that that's areal Louis Vaton bag? Right?
You're going to have to get thatauthenticated or are you doing that in the
(12:48):
shop. I think it's weird orlike difficult as well, because when you're
from w A, you know,Amanda rocking m the ancient thought in your
head is that's not Louis for tombag? Who has them around you?
You know kind of thing you justgotta go off, like your experience and
what you know, I guess,and just anything item you just look on
(13:11):
Google. I just googled everything.For example, I bought a I think
someone else bought a gold coin oncefrom the shop, and I was looking
at this gold coin. We boughtit for like fifty dollars. We're gonna
put it out for like one hundreddollars. And this probably was a stolen
item, because once I tell thestory, it's gonna make a lot more
sorry, stolen item. Once Itell it, it's going to make a
(13:33):
lot more sense. So we boughtit for fifty dollars, we're gonna put
it out for one hundred dollars.And I'm looking at this coin, I'm
like it's heavy, it looks likegold. Everything inside of me was telling
me this is a gold coin andif that's pure gold, that's worth a
(13:54):
lot of money. So I googledit and it was like a ninety sevent
year old specific coin. I wasthat confident that I just kept googling and
I found like a similar coin thatI couldn't match, like information like word
for word. But the information Ifound on Google was this is a solid
(14:18):
gold coin. It looked the samethe weight, because there was three different
coins. One was gold, onewas brass, one was another material.
The weight for this one matched upwith the gold one that I found on
the internet. So long story short, I get this coin checked out.
It was a solid gold coin thatwas worth like two three thousand dollars fifty
(14:39):
bucks. That had that stolen.I had had to be because yeah,
because the person wanted to come inhad these coins and said, you know,
I just want whatever for him.And because I couldn't find it was
so hard for me to find thatinformation. That's why I guess slipped through
the cracks because no one knew whereto look. The knowledge for coin dealers
(15:03):
wasn't there kind of thing. Sowhoever bought. It was like, yeah,
we'll take a risk on this.We'll give you fifty dollars or whatever.
Yeah, you know, maybe someonewill buy it, and yeah,
just ended up being worth all.They didn't know what that had, that
could have been from, They couldhave inherited it. I don't know the
conversation that happened when it was sold. Yeah, it could have been stolen.
(15:28):
The I overthink and I go like, worst case scenario, So I
believe it was stolen. But yeah, well that's just your instinct kicking in.
It's just like a feeling. Yeah, and probably the fact that the
person had, you know, awooden leg and an eyepatch and a parrot
on their shoulder might have given away. Yeah. I just don't know anyone
(15:50):
else is carrying gold double loons around. But yeah, it was. It
was a weird one, but yeah, interesting diget discount at places he tried.
Do you try and haggle? Doyou use it now every day?
Line don't like doing it. Butso for example where haggling really helped me.
(16:11):
I was out Crown Casino and itgot to like four, I am
no train is going end of thenight. When you've been drinking, you
just want to go home, andthe taxis are like one hundred hundred and
twenty dollars right, oh yeah,very long way to go. So I
said, you know what, Iwant to get home. Now, let's
(16:34):
see what we can do. Yeah. So I went to the first taxi
driver. I said how much secrethover? He goes eighty dollars flat rain.
Yeah, okay, that's not bad. I can do better. At
this point, there's twenty taxis right. See, you've got an anchor price.
(16:56):
Now is that what you call it? Yes? Yeah. So I
went to the next taxi seventy dollars. I'm like, ah, we're getting
better. I think you can dobetter. So went to the next one
because this taxi driver's seeing me walkingup to the other ones in front of
him, and this one said seventyand he goes how much did he say?
(17:19):
I go sixty and he goes,all right, I'll do it for
fifty. I'm like, huh,that's nice. Yeah, let's do it.
Oh, I got my three mateshome. I got me in my
homies home for a good price.I won that night. I bargained,
well that was good. You knowwhat. I once worked with the guy
(17:41):
and this has stuck with me mywhole life. Right, this guy NAMEDA
and I'll never ever forget him.He always said he would bargain for anything
and everything, No shame, didn'tcare. There was a cafe a couple
of doors down from where we worked. He paid two dollars per coffee when
everyone else was paying like four dollarsfour fifty. Right, he was just
(18:06):
on a corporate He asked him fora corporate rate. We worked in a
bookshop. It wasn't we're not acorporation, but he got it. The
parking that we all paid for,and he had the guys talk down to
give him like half price parking allday. I've never seen this guy pay
full price for anything. And hesaid to me one day, and I
(18:27):
want you to take these wise wordsfrom was and live by them. He
said, it's free to ask.And I've kept that and so many times.
And I was embarrassed at first,and now I've gotten so used to
it. You kind of get youget less embarrassed the more you do it.
I'll ask for a deal at places, and even when I'm willing to
(18:48):
pay full price, it's just likeask the question, and sometimes they'll go
sure, and It's like you wouldhave been willing to pay the full price,
but now now you've got twenty bucksoff, fifty bucks off. If
it's four dollars, I'll keep fourdollars instead of instead of not keeping four
dollars, right, So you know, mate? Was it like the social
(19:10):
anxiety me in me is like,you know, I can't just go around
asking for a deal everywhere. I'mgoing to look like an idiot, like
a dickhead, you know kind ofthing. But if you just the confidence,
and if you joke about it,if that's your way of doing it,
you know, joke about it's like, oh, surely you can do
better than that. Again, it'sfree to ask. You never know what's
(19:32):
gonna happen, and you're going tolaugh it off after exactly, And if
they say noll, you were goingto bite it. Anyway, just pay
the full price and go well,at least I asked. That's the question.
I've lost nothing out of it.No, I think it is a
good value. It's free to ask. I reckon, I should get that
put in a T shirt. It'sfree to ask. Hey, you know,
you know now in the in theporn breaker bosiness, it must be
(19:53):
so much easier with Google lens.So much stuff now I just don't know.
I don't know what something's worth.Click Google lens brings up a ton
of listings easy as it would havebeen a handy tool for you back in
the day round I would have everything. You know that that coin you take
(20:15):
your picture of the coin. Yes, so I went from pawnbroking, left
there, got a few month gigat cash converters. Oh yeah, the
actual proper branded store. Yeah,yep. So I saw the corporate I
guess side of things, which wasa lot different because in the other one,
because it was like a small business, you know, startup. I
(20:36):
did everything the bookkeeping for the loans, on the finance side, buying and
selling. I even did collections.At one point, I even went to
random people's houses because they were behindon their advances, you know, trying
to get some kind of agreement orlike they said, you around to bang
on someone's front door and threaten tobreak their knee. Apps pretty much.
(21:02):
Nah. I did have another guywith me, like another worker. But
yeah, that's a scary as helljob. Yeah. Oh and there was
a time I got threatened. Yeah, so I So I worked in themandrus
or by myself and well a storyabout stolen goods and why I guess the
(21:25):
system is important. Okay, sothis was back in the startup one,
not the cash Converters branded one.Yeah what happened. Yeah, so this
friend to this person sold his jewelryex girlfriend girlfriend, you know something where
he didn't want it to go throughlike I guess, legal channels. Yeah,
(21:48):
he came in, knew the itemswere there, said I want my
stuff back, which you know fairenough. I'm an understanding person. This
person is coming in, he's beenbetrayed. He I think he was even
offering to pay to get the itemsback without hassle. And as a person
that doesn't know about the business,you can understand why you think that would
(22:10):
be easily possible. You know,let's do this, no hassel, right,
I'll give you what you paid forit, you don't lose. I
get my stuff back, I'll getthe money off the other person. Problem
is it doesn't shouldn't work like thatby laws. So long story short,
he became aggressive, was threatening,wouldn't leave. I was in a pickle
(22:33):
because I had no one there tosupport me, and I didn't want to
do the wrong thing because I don'thave a panic button under the desk something.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure I pressedit so many times. I just
had no response for hours. Theywere busy that day. I don't know.
So what should have happened is becauseif we bought that item and wasn't
on loan, those items are alreadysent to the police register, so they
(22:55):
know that we have those items inthat location. If we give them this
person these items, we're gonna receivea fine and your secondhand pawnbroker's licenses on
the line. Right. It's ascary thing. They were building this business.
If I lost that, they wouldhave lost the whole business. Yeah,
your whole livelihood, it's gone.Yeah, you can understand why you
(23:17):
need to follow the rules. Butwhat we had to do because we would
you police just couldn't do anything.I couldn't get any support for a while.
The guy just was refusing to leave. We had to break the rules.
We sold the items back to him. We gave it back to him,
which I believe was the right thingto do. And you had to
be careful of your own safety,like this guy was gonna do something to
(23:41):
you in the shop, Like youdon't know, I don't think my defensive
skills are very good. Who knowsfight to fight mode to find out.
But you know from past experience,I'm probably on the losing end. You
were the guy they sent around topick up the debts. Yeah, finally
that And that's where it's hard,because you know to do the wrong thing,
but you want to do the rightthing. Is it is that karma?
(24:03):
Do you do you believe in?Do you believe in karma in?
Yeah? I think so. Anyway, I don't know your own version of
it. I believe in conspiracy theories. I think it would be a cool
idea that the Pyramids were landing podspads for spaceships. But do you think
they will? I want to believeit. I think it would be cool.
(24:23):
That's the problem. Do you believein ghosts? But then I'll have
moments where like I'll think, somethingweird that happened? Was that a ghost?
Just do we land on the moon? The Transformers did, that's for
sure. Again, the topic thatI don't have a lot of knowledge in.
(24:45):
I don't know. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. You know.
A big fan of stargat and allthat, I like the idea of
something being out there. Okay,do I believe or not? I don't
know, but I think it's acool concept. Like there's a you and
me in another planet. You know, are you talking about like, are
you talking about multiverse? Now?I think I started a tangent where I
(25:07):
was talking about both. That's that'sa whole that's a whole other episode multiverse
theory. We live an infinite numberof dimensions that are just you know,
degrees away from this. That manyalternate realities. But I'm glad I'm in
this one with you, Jamie.Thanks man. I appreciate that I wanted
to leave with the remembering the wordsof Waza. Yes, free to ask,
(25:33):
go for a discount, do it, give it a crack, do
it tomorrow, do it on thenext thing you buy. That's so,
that's the best advice I can thinkof if I made you, if I
asked, why are you asking that? So? I'm living the wad alife.
Baby was that told me? Blamehim? That was previous pawnbroker and
all around good guy, Matthew Malaysyand so good to catch up with him
(25:56):
after so many years. And Iwas thinking about the fact that he's got
this bargaining skill. Now he's gotthis bartering talent that he's acquired or perhaps
improved through his previous occupation, andI was thinking about the fact that I've
probably got some of these. Duringthe mid nineties to the mid two thousands,
(26:21):
I did all kinds of random jobsbecause I was a semi employed actor,
and I'd do anything sort of inbetween acting gigs just to pay the
bills. And I worked for alittle as a lighting retailer, selling residential
and commercial lighting products. And nowthe skill that I've got is that I
can walk into someone's house and tellimmediately if they've got cheaper, expensive lighting,
(26:45):
and I guess how good the lightingis. I've got a good sense
of that. Friends of mine hada fluorescent light that wouldn't turn on properly.
I diagnosed that the starter, whichis this tiny little module worth a
couple of dollars, was the wrongsize for it. And they thought that
I was some kind of genius fixingtheir lighting. But it was just those
(27:07):
old retail skills paying off. Probablynot a skill that's going to get me
my own Marvel comic book series,but a skill. Nonetheless. I was
a waiter for a time a singingwaiter in a theater restaurant, and the
skill that I got there was theability to carry multiple plates in a very
dexterous manner. So well, that'sallowed me to be lazy now in life
(27:32):
because I can carry three four platesfrom the kitchen into the lund room all
in one go, not having tomake multiple trips. Again, not quite
a superpower, but a nice littleskill to have and something that I'm probably
never going to forget. And hey, now I know I've banged on about
this a bit, but liking theshow, rating it to the maximum stars
does help me out. Also,if you could share one of my shows
(27:56):
that you like on your social media, we might be able to gather some
new listeners. I'd be super appreciativeof that because I guess word of mouth
recommendation from you would mean a lotto me. So thanks for joining me
today on Jamie's Club.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!