Fear and Loathing at the Reliable Loan & Pawn Shop

When you have been in the sheriff cockroach motel for 10 months, your mouth begins to water for some good North Carolina barbecue. The only problem, at least in my case, is that I am not on the Good Ship Enterprise in the year 2585 where food is free. Food cost money in Raleigh Towne, so I went to Reliable Loan and Pawn on Wilmington Street, and I tried to pawn my watch. In Charleston, South Carolina, I took it to a Pawn Shop, and they offer to buy or pawn it (same price) for $225. It is a TAG divers watch (200 meters), now selling brand new for approximately $900.

I went into Reliable Loan and the appraiser looked at it and started treating me like dirt because it was five minutes slow (it hasn't been set in 10 months). He took it down to whom I perceived to be the owner's son, and he acted like I was fixing to rob his store and asked me how much I was asking for it, real hostile like. I told him $250 dollars, and he slammed me down to $100. These pawn shops are supposed to be regulated so that they have to buy or pawn merchandise at fair market value--less, usually, a fifty percent commission. Obtaining merchandise under false and misleading circumstances is the law in North Carolina. It is a felony! You can do time in prison. I have even heard stories at the sheriff cockroach hotel where Jesus Cowan and Jesus Willoughby arrested a magazine salesman who misrepresented himself as a neighborhood kid to a potential customer. I went looking for the Raleigh Police Department to report the crime, but times have changed in Raleigh Towne, and they have moved their headquarters to another location. I bet if you took a 14 carat gold piece in there, they would tell you it was a 10 carat piece. It is called a sting operation. Good luck, but watch your 12 and your 6, they are probably mobbed up.












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