Guild Wars 2

Basically, I want to open a theoretical pawn shop and wanted to know the legitimacy of it. The way it would basically work is I would lend another player an amount of gold, to be repaid with interest, and they in turn would send me a non-account/soul bound item to hold as collateral. When the principal and interest is repaid within the set time frame, i would return the item. Anyone know if this is ok with ArenaNet? I can’t seem to find anything that would indicate its illegality, so to speak.

For replies, please leave out your personal opinions on the endeavor. I don’t really care if you think it will work or why someone would not trust the process or how i can get ripped off or vice versa…blah blah blah

Thank you!

Interesting endeavor! I have no idea honestly but I do find this fascinating.

Hm… well I don’t think it will really work if you want to do it like this. It would be way too small of a scale. People would have an incentive to somehow deceive you. Sadly that is just the way it is.
The idea in general though is really really cool. But why not make it a bigger thing. Well, that would require some work, but would probably work out better.

Step 1:
Make a website.

Step 2:
Don’t be the only one that offers to lend gold. Let other people sign up for it, with a fee of, I dunno. 1-5 gold a month or every 2 weeks? xD (depending on some things. i dunno. just example)
Those people then would be listed on the website with the amount of gold they offer to lend. Everyone would also have a small text box saying if they want any collateral or anything and how high the interest is. (make sure though the one that offers on the website is the same ingame. I imagine trolls putting up sites for people they don’t like so they get whispered.)

Step 3:
The people that are interested can whisper the gold lenders ingame for the stuff.
There should also be the possibility to blacklist those that get a negative critique. Both on customer and on the side of the one that offers. Then everyone would know the ones that are trustworthy. maybe you can even give a collateral for either side by saying if they use your service, they get a small bit back or anything like that.

At somepoint it should roll on itself more or less. It would take alot of work, but on a small scale, it just wouldn’t be trustworthy enough for the community and the trolls wouldn’t be able to feel “punished” by just a small scale shop.

I can’t see how this would have any issue with Anet, the only question is if you end get scammed somehow, Anet won’t help you for sure.
The idea seems interesting, if you know what you are doing.

Yeah you might need to get people to work for you on all servers so they can chase people down in wvw to break legs.

Joking. But that would be pretty funny.

Lilith: haha, have thought about the mafia angle of it myself! hiring players on other servers to gank them in wvwvw for weeks etc. (btw, NOT in the plan)

Bezebu: Agreed. it is definitely a risk. losing some gold would suck but it IS the risk

KehxD: Definitely thinking bigger with it if it succeeds on a smaller scale. Even at a small scale, charging 15% or so on gold that i’m not really using and getting a return on it will be rewarding. And some of the issues with large scale that you mentioned i have also considered and are also why I may have to NOT go bigger scale with it.

Basically the way it would work is i would “buy” the players items for a certain percentage below the low price on the TP (to protect against dips in the market, trading post taxes, etc.) and give them the money with a 15% or so vig on the repayment. Money received, items returned. If they default, or do not repay by the time, i will contact and grant a very small extension (few days) and if the money isn’t repaid, i keep and sell the items. The risk comes on the transfers of money and items. If i send first i run the risk of course of not receiving the repayment or the items for collateral. Will see how it goes. If it all works out i will update on how it went.

Thanks for the feedback!

As long as you aren’t conducting said “business” on the forums it should be fine I would think.

There’s a sticky message on the BLTC sub-forum specifically stating the forum is not a “grey market” meaning its not allowed to set up trades and such there, which I imagine applies to the rest of the forum as well.

You can call it a “pawn shop” if you like, but you are advertising to be a loan shark and yet have no way to “enforce” payment of the “loan”.

It is possible that Anet would look at the ’interest" as something that violates the EULA against gold selling.

While I’m not sure ANet would have an issue with the general premise of the venture, the potential Support tickets that could get generated when someone involved inevitably tries to pull a fast one may be a major problem they don’t want to deal with….even telling someone, “not our problem”, takes resources.

Brother Grimm.5176:

You can call it a “pawn shop” if you like, but you are advertising to be a loan shark and yet have no way to “enforce” payment of the “loan”.

It is possible that Anet would look at the ’interest" as something that violates the EULA against gold selling.

While I’m not sure ANet would have an issue with the general premise of the venture, the potential Support tickets that could get generated when someone involved inevitably tries to pull a fast one may be a major problem they don’t want to deal with….even telling someone, “not our problem”, takes resources.

Good potential issue identified there if this is a gold selling grey area insofar as the interest goes, will look into this. However, it is similar to loan sharking yes, but no it is much more in line with how a pawn shop operates. I would receive items that can be sold on the TP (collateral). If the loan is not repaid, i sell the items and recover my initial lay-out. So no need to enforce any repayment. They don’t want to pay, they don’t get there stuff back. It makes it interesting in a few other ways such as perhaps the items i take as collateral go way up in price. Then potentially if someone defaults i could make a huge profit from the default. Or maybe the collateral takes a huge dive in price and the loanee decides to keep the money and not repay, hence sticking me with nearly worthless collateral. This is mostly how a pawn shop works. Thanks tho!

And to the poster before, of course I would not conduct any business on the forum, thanks for the reminder tho!

The person running the pawn shop would have a very low chance of being scammed because he wouldn’t send any gold until after he had the item and he would send the item until after he had the gold.

The customers on the other hand…

Odahviing.4715:

Lilith: haha, have thought about the mafia angle of it myself! hiring players on other servers to gank them in wvwvw for weeks etc. (btw, NOT in the plan)

Ironically I intend to try something very similar to this (without naming other games) in a new sandbox mmo that’s currently in Alpha that has open PvP

Odahviing.4715:

Good potential issue identified there if this is a gold selling grey area insofar as the interest goes, will look into this. However, it is similar to loan sharking yes, but no it is much more in line with how a pawn shop operates. I would receive items that can be sold on the TP (collateral). If the loan is not repaid, i sell the items and recover my initial lay-out. So no need to enforce any repayment. They don’t want to pay, they don’t get there stuff back. It makes it interesting in a few other ways such as perhaps the items i take as collateral go way up in price. Then potentially if someone defaults i could make a huge profit from the default. Or maybe the collateral takes a huge dive in price and the loanee decides to keep the money and not repay, hence sticking me with nearly worthless collateral. This is mostly how a pawn shop works. Thanks tho!

you sound like Butters describing his kissing company to the banker lady. It might have differences and similarities to certain things, but you should call it what it is: a “loan”. “loan shark” just means someone who gives out loans with high interest and physical repercussions for not paying it back. You’re unable to do the 2nd part, so I wouldn’t call this being a “loan shark”, but this is much closer to being a lending company than pawn shop. I’ve never even heard of pawn shops giving people loans.
You’re going to have some difficulties in doing this:
biggest difficulty would be getting a name for yourself as someone who is trustworthy and won’t scam the borrowers
after that, you’re going to have a big problem with people scamming you.
as a third-biggest problem, I would say collateral. meaning that someone looking to borrow 100g wouldn’t have 100g worth of stuff for you to hold onto. If they did, they would just sell it and then have 85g (the difference from 100g is probably close to the interest you would charge?)
but as far as if you are allowed to do this, I would say that you certainly could, as long as you don’t accept repayments outside of the game, for example. (or you would be a gold seller)

Since you’re not actually selling gold, this isn’t against the TOS. Like others have said, setting up a reputation is the problem not to mention the odds of being scammed are astronomical.

In the end, gold is just too easy to come by in the game for this to be a worthwhile venture.

Mystic.5934:

you sound like Butters describing his kissing company to the banker lady. It might have differences and similarities to certain things, but you should call it what it is: a “loan”. “loan shark” just means someone who gives out loans with high interest and physical repercussions for not paying it back. You’re unable to do the 2nd part, so I wouldn’t call this being a “loan shark”, but this is much closer to being a lending company than pawn shop. I’ve never even heard of pawn shops giving people loans.
You’re going to have some difficulties in doing this:
biggest difficulty would be getting a name for yourself as someone who is trustworthy and won’t scam the borrowers
after that, you’re going to have a big problem with people scamming you.
as a third-biggest problem, I would say collateral. meaning that someone looking to borrow 100g wouldn’t have 100g worth of stuff for you to hold onto. If they did, they would just sell it and then have 85g (the difference from 100g is probably close to the interest you would charge?)
but as far as if you are allowed to do this, I would say that you certainly could, as long as you don’t accept repayments outside of the game, for example. (or you would be a gold seller)

I just wanted to point out the bold part and respond to that: making loans is the primary business function of pawn shops. They take your valuable item as collateral for the loan and sell it only if you fail to meet the repayment terms.

Sure, they also outright buy things too, but making loans is where they make their money.

Only problem with a player run pawn shop is EVE style embezzlement.

Apart for the obvious drama potential your idea has, if I was Anet I wouldnt allow it. Though you probably wont do anything wrong or illegal as such, Anet needs to keep an eye on a lot of logs to make sure. They need to check that it isnt some white lvl 1 item changing hands for 100 gold. Every time.
But the drama potential alone would make me very sceptical.
Though it would be cool if you someday have your own stand in Lions Arch

JoeytheHutt.1742:

Apart for the obvious drama potential your idea has, if I was Anet I wouldnt allow it. Though you probably wont do anything wrong or illegal as such, Anet needs to keep an eye on a lot of logs to make sure. They need to check that it isnt some white lvl 1 item changing hands for 100 gold. Every time.
But the drama potential alone would make me very sceptical.
Though it would be cool if you someday have your own stand in Lions Arch

Agreed….my thought is Anet will feel allowing this type of “service” is not worth the effort they will have to put out to “police” it. It may work fine under their radar but when the first support tickets surfaces, they may be put in a position that requires account closure(s) to resolve for good.

Just mentioning it as a possibility.

Brother Grimm.5176:

JoeytheHutt.1742:

Apart for the obvious drama potential your idea has, if I was Anet I wouldnt allow it. Though you probably wont do anything wrong or illegal as such, Anet needs to keep an eye on a lot of logs to make sure. They need to check that it isnt some white lvl 1 item changing hands for 100 gold. Every time.
But the drama potential alone would make me very sceptical.
Though it would be cool if you someday have your own stand in Lions Arch

Agreed….my thought is Anet will feel allowing this type of “service” is not worth the effort they will have to put out to “police” it. It may work fine under their radar but when the first support tickets surfaces, they may be put in a position that requires account closure(s) to resolve for good.

Just mentioning it as a possibility.

They’ve already decided how much effort they are putting towards fighting scams: none. the most they do is tell players “We make trading player to player non-conducive because we don’t want players doing that and getting scammed (use the TP instead). If you want to get around this, then you’re on your own and we will never intervene.” Every post I’ve seen on these forums about “This guy scammed me, what can I do?” ends with “file a support ticket if you want, but nothing will come of it”, and support always gives them a copypasta of how they can’t do anything about it. The only time I’ve seen them intervene is when the player’s account is compromised/lost to a hacker, and in that case Anet resets that account to how it was a few days before.

I have a guild member that does something similar to what you are talking about, but strictly within the guild. He loans out gold at an interest, and takes payments to pay him back. Having never gotten a loan from him so I’m not sure how he enforces it, but my guess is that its only to established guild members, and those who have a reputation within the guild.

Mystic.5934:

Brother Grimm.5176:

JoeytheHutt.1742:

Apart for the obvious drama potential your idea has, if I was Anet I wouldnt allow it. Though you probably wont do anything wrong or illegal as such, Anet needs to keep an eye on a lot of logs to make sure. They need to check that it isnt some white lvl 1 item changing hands for 100 gold. Every time.
But the drama potential alone would make me very sceptical.
Though it would be cool if you someday have your own stand in Lions Arch

Agreed….my thought is Anet will feel allowing this type of “service” is not worth the effort they will have to put out to “police” it. It may work fine under their radar but when the first support tickets surfaces, they may be put in a position that requires account closure(s) to resolve for good.

Just mentioning it as a possibility.

They’ve already decided how much effort they are putting towards fighting scams: none. the most they do is tell players “We make trading player to player non-conducive because we don’t want players doing that and getting scammed (use the TP instead). If you want to get around this, then you’re on your own and we will never intervene.” Every post I’ve seen on these forums about “This guy scammed me, what can I do?” ends with “file a support ticket if you want, but nothing will come of it”, and support always gives them a copypasta of how they can’t do anything about it. The only time I’ve seen them intervene is when the player’s account is compromised/lost to a hacker, and in that case Anet resets that account to how it was a few days before.

True. Anet have stated several times that the tp is the safe and preferred way to do trades. Outside of the tp you’re on your own.
Still, a disagreement/misunderstanding between the pawnshop and a customer could easily end up in reports of verbal abuse and so on, wich is something Anet would have to deal with. Or if LA chat gets filled with whining and accusations. The “toxic QD train” comes to mind.
Obviously, a “privat” disagreement doesnt have to end up in mapchat, but I’d like to see that.
But I believe the main issue for Anet will be how to be sure this isnt a goldseller activity. I am NOT saying it is or will ever be, but how can Anet know? I assume it isnt enough for the pawner just to promise it isnt.

As I said, the fact that you issue a ticket to Support takes resources….enough tickets about the same issue might result in some actions beyond the “can’t help you”, responses to tickets….again, just mentioning the possibility.

I certainly think this would not be unheard of in many guild situations (where SOME sort of repercussion could be use to “encourage” prompt repayment….). Personally, I would never use this with someone I did not know in RL (and knew where they lived), but I’ve lived long enough to be jaded and cynical….do what you please.

I don’t think it would work because of the way pawning an item works. You have to put up an item with a value of say $500 and you get a loan of $200 + interest. The reason this works in real life is because it’s not as easy to sell a used item for its valued price in a global market like we can in GW2 with the TP.

If a player needs gold in-game, all he/she has to do is sell the item on the TP. Boom, instant gold at full value. Later, they can rebuy the item from the TP. The money lost for that person is the % cost of listing and selling on the TP, which iirc is 10%. Of course, the market fluctuates too, so they could potentially lose a lot or even make a profit. But for a short duration investment, it should be roughly 10%.

That means that for someone to go to you as a pawn broker, you’re interest fees would have to be competitive with the TP. Now, the TP’s cut is a fixed percentage, regardless of time it takes to sell. You have to decide if the interest on your loan accrues over time or is fixed. Will the interest be the same for someone who turns around and pays off their loan in a day vs someone who takes the full duration of the loan (say, 1-2 weeks)?

Gotta crunch the numbers. I will say though, that the trustworthiness of you will play into this venture. What specifically would draw someone to you for gold vs using the TP? The reward has to be worth the risk. After all, people who use pawn brokers do so for 1 of 2 reasons: micro-loan (which banks generally don’t give) or their credit (financial reliability rating) isn’t viable for a loan.

Edit: It’d be funny if GW2 had PvP servers. Then you could employ “leg-breakers” to grief those who don’t pay up.

Seras.5702:

After all, people who use pawn brokers do so for 1 of 2 reasons: micro-loan (which banks generally don’t give) or their credit (financial reliability rating) isn’t viable for a loan.

Ah, you left out another reason. As a public defender, every time I see a pawn shop transaction it’s because someone was dumping stolen merchandise for cash at a fraction of the value. And, usually, they weren’t the thief because someone else said “Hey dude, I don’ t have my ID, can you pawn this for me?” Of course, pawn shops actually keep records and photos of everyone using their services, so boom, out go the arrest warrants for the poor dupe.

But then the OP has been warned that if ANet decides something “criminal” is going on, such as money laundering, serious penalties could be applied.

building a website would be perfect for this. have a Data base of reported scammers and that way if someone goes to pawn they can search them kinda like a criminal record and decide whether they are eligible as well as warn others not to pawn with these. i had a similar idea to this with trading outside the TP to avoid the BlackLion tax (kinda like GW1 guru)