Despite the fact that Paul Maripadavil has never set foot in a pawnshop, he has some words of caution for those who might.

“Pawnshops are usually shady places where crack-heads go,” said the senior in LAS. “Ebay’s generally safer.”

Workers at the pawnshops near campus are viewed through the image of the “old-school pawnshops” — unregulated, dirty stores shelved with stolen, inoperative products.

Kevin Johnson, owner of The Pawn Stop in Champaign, is sick of it.

“Everyone has a terrible view of pawnshops from the movies,” he said, “but what do students have to lose?”

Johnson, who opened his store a little more than a year ago, takes pride in keeping it neat and tidy. His secondhand TVs, PS3s and CDs are all stowed categorically along his shelves. His state license to pawn is carefully hung at eye-level near the main entrance. Even his cans of Pepsi are precisely divided from his colleague’s Cokes in the office mini-fridge.

Although the only guarantee he offers is that he has personally tested all his products, he said his customers are satisfied. He even lost a sale once when an elderly woman brought a glitchy laptop in to pawn and he fixed it for her instead of buying it dirt-cheap.

What Johnson and other pawnshop dealers wish people understood is that Illinois pawnshops are some of the most tightly regulated businesses. They have security cameras, require customer photo IDs and submit a daily police report of all items pawned.

“Less than one percent of the items we receive end up to be stolen,” Johnson said. “That’s a nationwide statistic.”

While some people remain wary of pawnshops, others like Morgan Smith, senior at Parkland College, embrace the concept of pawning.

Smith has spent the past six months punching the clock at Gold Rush II in Champaign. The landscape design major said she often takes advantage of the store’s inventory, buying things there she would have had to pay more for at a retail store.

Her last pawnshop purchase, a 260-piece Craftsman toolkit for her boyfriend, only set her back $125. She said it could have cost her a couple hundred more at retail price, and she wasn’t about to give eBay a chance.

“I know somebody who bought a computer on eBay and that same month it crashed,” Smith said. “There’s just nothing you can do about that because a lot of sellers on the site only sell ‘as is’ — with no guarantee.”

Don Crowder, owner of Gold Rush II, said Smith isn’t alone in her preference for in-person over online sales.

“People like that they can come in here and stand face-to-face with us,” Crowder said. “Within a few minutes, we tell them exactly what we’re willing to pay for what they have, and eBay can’t do that.”

Crowder said many young people gravitate toward buying and selling online, but said it hasn’t hurt his business. In fact, his store has flourished ever since the economy took a downturn. He said more and more people come in looking for deals.

Allen Mathew, junior in LAS, might soon be one of those deal-seekers. Mathew said he’s had a lack of exposure to pawnshops but isn’t afraid of them.

“If I had a big ticket purchase or if I were to sell my guitar, I’d definitely check out a pawnshop,” he said. “But I’d also check eBay.”