Pawn loan reminder texts: what to send and when
A forfeited loan turns into inventory you now have to sell. Many customers who forfeit meant to redeem or renew and simply missed the date. A short reminder before maturity is the cheapest way to keep a loan earning, and it is easy to get wrong. Here is a routine that works and keeps you on the right side of the rules.
Get consent on the ticket
Text a customer only if they agreed to it, in writing, when the loan was written: a checkbox on the ticket or a signed line with the phone number. Keep that record with the loan. Federal law on automated texts (the Telephone Consumer Protection Act) and several state laws apply to these messages, and some states have their own pawn notice rules. Check yours with counsel before you start, and honor a STOP reply the same day.
When to send
| Message | When | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| First reminder | About a week before maturity | Time to plan the payment |
| Due soon | Two days before maturity | The nudge most redemptions follow |
| Grace period | During the grace period your state allows, if any | Last chance to renew or redeem |
What the message should say
Keep it short, name the shop, and give the customer what they need to act:
- The shop’s name and phone number.
- The ticket number, not a description of the item.
- The date the loan matures and the amount to renew or to redeem.
- How to stop the messages.
Leave the item out. A text can be read by someone else in the household, and a customer may not want them to know what was pawned.
Measure whether it works
Compare the redemption and renewal rate on loans that got reminders with the rate before you started, by loan size. The forfeiture rate article shows how to count it. If you can, start with half your tickets for a month so the comparison is fair.
Where PawnCounter fits
PawnCounter already measures your forfeiture rate from your POS exports, and forecasts which open loans are likely to forfeit in the next 30 and 60 days from your own closed loans (see it in the sample report). Reminder texts are being built next and are not in PawnCounter yet. Our stake is plain: PawnCounter is what we sell.
See these numbers for your own shop.
Upload a sales or inventory export from the POS you already run. The Profit X-Ray is free, needs no card, and is ready in minutes.