Las Vegas Weekly

Pawngo brings the high-class hock online

If you’d rather not deal with the hassle of taking your goods to a pawn shop (and this guy with the blow torch), try online sensation Pawngo.

Thanks in great part to the Vegas-based hit show Pawn Stars (honk if you love Chumlee), the stigma attached to hocking your commodities for cash is becoming a thing of the past. But for the once-wealthy who have fallen on hard times, the thought of having to walk into a shop and lay their goods on the counter is still less than palatable.

Enter Pawngo, an online pawnshop that launched early this month. Founded by Todd Hills (who also founded Pawn One in 1997 and Internet Pawn in 2009), it’s the first full-service online pawnshop in the U.S. and is backed by Daylight Partners, Access Venture Partners and Lightbank, the $100 million fund started by the founders of Groupon. But you won’t find old lawn mowers and Wallflowers albums in the inventory. How about a Cartier Roadster chronograph, Louis Vuitton clutch, Nikon D60 Digital SLR camera or an 18K ring with yellow and blue diamonds?

Pawngo is designed for people with quality material things who want to pawn them for short-term loans or sell them through a middleman that can get a better price than a seller would left to the haggling wolves on sites such as eBay or Craigslist. Here’s a sampling of the company’s promises:

• Our company mission is to get you cash when you need it without any hassle and without the risk of going into debt.

• We won’t check your credit or financial history. We won’t bother you if you don’t pay. We won’t report you to credit agencies, ever. Our customer service will be beyond your wildest expectations, always.

• We guarantee that our loan or buy offer for your item will be better than any other pawn shop, any other online marketplace and any online buyer of pre-owned merchandise.

Strong words, though the founders insist that their combined 25 years of experience owning and operating 50 pawn shops make them solid, as do a team of certified appraisers.

First, understand what it means to pawn. You are borrowing against the value of something you own outright, less Pawngo’s profit margin. You can repay the loan (plus interest, typically about 3-7 percent) in terms of 3 to 6 months. If you can’t, it becomes Pawngo property, and that diamond ring might end up on your neighbor’s finger. Or you can choose to sell from the start, which will bring in a little more money. Here’s the Pawngo how-to:

PAWN Tell us about your item. We assess your item. We email you an offer. You FedEx your item for free. You get your money. You pay off your loan. You get your item back.

SELL Tell us about your item. We assess your item. We email you an offer. You FedEx your item for free. You get your money.

Smart quotes are available on the site, as is support through live chat or a customer service number.

In its young life, Pawngo already has loaned more than $1.35 million in 46 states. So if you’ve never known what to do with that rabbit fur cape your great-grandma left you, this might be just the ticket.