Sure, they use and take "$" in a Portuguese pawn shop...
Lets not forget that "pawn shop" = USED!
While possibly/obviously under priced even for the USED market, those that can't afford CURRENT GENERATION NEW stuff can often find fairly good deals on USED stuff.
A recent purchase of a Thinkpad i7/16GB/512GB/WIN11 for $260 is surely no exception.
YMMV.