Quote:
Originally Posted by Kumabjorn
Does a pawn shop have a legal obligation to research the background of a good? If you buy something from a pawn shop that was stolen and then pawned would you face criminal liabilities?
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In the US pawn shops do not have to research background. They do have to keep records for the city and county in which they do business. In Georgia they have a form for both city and county that lists the customer's name address, driver's license and a description of the pawned items. They also have to keep the pawned items for a set period of time. The police and sheriff's departments can and do check these against stolen merchandise reports and can confiscate items reported stolen.
The majority of pawn shops are honest. I had the following happen just recently.
Police came to my jewelry store with a ring originally sold by us. A local pawn shop called them when two high school boys came in to pawn 8 diamond rings. They claimed it was one's mother's jewelry and he had permission to sell them. They called the police and they were questioned. Nothing could be proven at the time. The pawn shop, at the request of the police bought the items into pawn so the police would have evidence. The police took pictures of them as they left the store and later identified them from school records. One ring was in our jewelry box. My wife recognized the ring and we looked up the customer for the police. All the rings were hers. She got them back the police arrested the boys and the pawn shop was out the money they paid. They did not have to do this. They knew the items were stolen and voluntarily helped the police catch the thieves.
Apache