Need People's Opinions

[EcoWOLFrb]

Ok PWO, I'm thinking about opening a poke pawn shop. I have a few questions for you. ;D
For those of you who don't know, the basic idea is a loan system from me to you, with your Pokemon as collateral for the loan. I would charge interest on the amount given, and instead of having to sell your Pokemon to someone for the money, I would give your Pokemon back with you giving my money interest back.

Please Consider these questions and give feedback:

-What is a fair interest rate per: day, week, month... in example: 5% per day, 20% per week, or 50% per month. the amount, and time of loan would be discussed prior to loan.
-What would be a fair amount of time for the loan to default? I was thinking if it went over a month, but the customer would have the option to make a payment prior to default to keep loan active, Is this fair?
- Obviously I would have to set standard prices for common pokes, and they couldn't be close to full market price, as If the loan defaults I still have to make money. What is a fair loan for a Pokemon, generally I was thinking 50% of what it's worth unless its an unwanted poke (IE: S Ratata, S Zubat,S Tentacool... ect.) then it would be much lower as they're hard to sell. Remember I'm not looking to keep these pokes, these are to be returned back to owners.
-I'm not looking to spend a crazy amount of money on a single pokemon, I was thinking of capping my loan for any poke at 10m, do you think this is fair? I think most people wanting to pawn a poke worth 20m+ wouldn't be so broke as to need more than 10m at a given time.
-Obviously there would be people who are in desperate need of more money than I'm willing to loan, do you think these people would be reasonable, or get upset? I'm not looking to get into any arguments.
- Detailed Records would be recorded on my shop within a spoiler and reminders would be PM'd to customers about their loan payment being due. After a certain amount of time the loan would default, this would be stated on the agreement on my pawn shop, all customers would be assumed in agreement. Do you think people would understand if their Pokemon were lost to lack of payment? As stated before I would allow people to make a small payment to insure an extension on their loan, what are your opinions of this policy?
-If a customer defaults on a loan and doesn't make an attempt to contact me prior to the default date, the customer would be welcome to buy it at my set/auction price.
-What loyalty benefits do you think customers should receive after a good amount of reliable loans? I was thinking more money for loans, or discounted interest rates.

Any thoughts or comments are very much appreciated, I would start off small but hopefully grow and build a good customer base. Thanks for your time!

 

[TheWyatt2012]

I'm not sure I quite understand what you mean.

Are you saying people would give you their Pokemon and in return you'd pay them? That's just a regular shop.

 

[Saric]

I'm not sure I quite understand what you mean.

Are you saying people would give you their Pokemon and in return you'd pay them? That's just a regular shop.

He's saying that they'd give him their pokemon and he'd give them money as a "loan"
Think of a pawn shop but pokemon as the item.

 

[TheWyatt2012]

Still seems more like a shop to me. What's the point in this loaning system? I mean, how would they pay it back if they didn't have the money to begin with?

 

[EcoWOLFrb]

I'm not sure I quite understand what you mean.

Are you saying people would give you their Pokemon and in return you'd pay them? That's just a regular shop.

yes, but I would hold their Pokemon, and they would pay what I gave them for it+ interest to get their Pokemon back.
You're not familiar with the concept of a pawn shop? It would be for people who need money but don't want to sell and lose their Pokemon. Say, for example you wanted to buy a Pokemon from someone else, but didn't have enough money. You would pawn a Pokemon to me, (let's say a S Kingdra worth 3m) I would give you 1.5m for it, and a week later you would pay that 1.5m+ a certain amount of interest to regain your Pokemon.

 

[Merse]

You could work only with a minimal interest, because of several reasons.
- Accumulating money in PWO is based on pure luck. If you have nothing to sell, you must catch something worthy to sell, which is not a guarantee that you will. And even if you do, you may don't find someone who would want to pay for it.
- Prices are dropping on an alarming rate. Pokemons lose 20-50% of their value every month! It becomes harder and harder to accumulate money, except of those extremely rare cases when you find something insanely valuable (like a shiny VR) and you sell it. So what do you do if the one who asked for the loan simply cannot pay it back, although he tried?
- There is a high risk of scamming, loosing the Pokes etc. What if you get banned for some weird reason? Or you just can't play because you broke your leg or something? Or if you just give up on playing, or just slowly forget about PWO? Some people will never get their Pokemon back?
- Turning this around: What is the one who asked for a loan can't get Internet access for 2 weeks, because he's in hospital for example? You'll just sell his Poke and after that you have no chance to make it back.... And what if you doN't have the money to compensate him for his loss?
- Considering what you're planning, you may become a very tempting target for hackers, as you presumably would have good Pokemons in your custody.

In short: I just see too many issues with an idea and too high risks on the part of the player who gives his Pokemon to you. I don't think this would be a good idea. Not because I think you would scam the players, but there are too many factors that could jeopardize the whole business.

 

[psychosamm]

You could work only with a minimal interest, because of several reasons.
- Accumulating money in PWO is based on pure luck. If you have nothing to sell, you must catch something worthy to sell, which is not a guarantee that you will. And even if you do, you may don't find someone who would want to pay for it.
- Prices are dropping on an alarming rate. Pokemons lose 20-50% of their value every month! It becomes harder and harder to accumulate money, except of those extremely rare cases when you find something insanely valuable (like a shiny VR) and you sell it. So what do you do if the one who asked for the loan simply cannot pay it back, although he tried?
- There is a high risk of scamming, loosing the Pokes etc. What if you get banned for some weird reason? Or you just can't play because you broke your leg or something? Or if you just give up on playing, or just slowly forget about PWO? Some people will never get their Pokemon back?
- Turning this around: What is the one who asked for a loan can't get Internet access for 2 weeks, because he's in hospital for example? You'll just sell his Poke and after that you have no chance to make it back.... And what if you doN't have the money to compensate him for his loss?
- Considering what you're planning, you may become a very tempting target for hackers, as you presumably would have good Pokemons in your custody.

In short: I just see too many issues with an idea and too high risks on the part of the player who gives his Pokemon to you. I don't think this would be a good idea. Not because I think you would scam the players, but there are too many factors that could jeopardize the whole business.

Generally with a pawn shop there is a sort of grace period to regain your item past the original due date (i know i used to work at one) So say someone does indeed "break a leg" and is at the hospital for 2 weeks, there would normally be a grace period after that, lets say a week or so if the original loan was for 2 weeks.

As for the banning thing as long as he has well documented agreements and proof that he didn't scam anyone, that they simply failed to collect their poke, i don't see him getting in any trouble. Also people will come up with all sorts of excuses as to why they couldn't get their item, or in this case pokemon. They made the original loan because they wanted to, no one made them. So if they default and loose their pokemon its their own fault. Rare things happen where they may not be able to, but thats what the grace period is for, however the vast majority of the time is either because they forgot or simply could not pay back the loan. This is no one's fault but the owner of the pokemon, because they did the loan to begin with, and knew the consequences if they didn't pay back in time.
And as for the "chance" he might stop playing or something is on him, if he wants to take on this responsibility he should know if he has the time to commit to it. I think this could be a interesting addition to the pwo economy, people have done this sort of thing before, its not unheard of. I'd be interested to see their opinion on the matter.

 

[EcoWOLFrb]

You could work only with a minimal interest, because of several reasons.
- Accumulating money in PWO is based on pure luck. If you have nothing to sell, you must catch something worthy to sell, which is not a guarantee that you will. And even if you do, you may don't find someone who would want to pay for it.
- Prices are dropping on an alarming rate. Pokemons lose 20-50% of their value every month! It becomes harder and harder to accumulate money, except of those extremely rare cases when you find something insanely valuable (like a shiny VR) and you sell it. So what do you do if the one who asked for the loan simply cannot pay it back, although he tried?
- There is a high risk of scamming, loosing the Pokes etc. What if you get banned for some weird reason? Or you just can't play because you broke your leg or something? Or if you just give up on playing, or just slowly forget about PWO? Some people will never get their Pokemon back?
- Turning this around: What is the one who asked for a loan can't get Internet access for 2 weeks, because he's in hospital for example? You'll just sell his Poke and after that you have no chance to make it back.... And what if you doN't have the money to compensate him for his loss?
- Considering what you're planning, you may become a very tempting target for hackers, as you presumably would have good Pokemons in your custody.

In short: I just see too many issues with an idea and too high risks on the part of the player who gives his Pokemon to you. I don't think this would be a good idea. Not because I think you would scam the players, but there are too many factors that could jeopardize the whole business.

Appreciate the opinion