How do you verify an FFL by name?

[chad68]

Where can a person go to check whether an FFL is legit by either their personal name or their business name? Is this possible?

The ATF site only goes by license numbers, it seems.

[halifax]

There's this but it will take some searching:

http://www.atf.gov/about/foia/ffl-list.html

[tenpercentfirearms]

There's this but it will take some searching:

http://www.atf.gov/about/foia/ffl-list.html

Which CTRL-F will take care of really quick for you.

[Mssr. Eleganté]

Which CTRL-F will take care of really quick for you.

Come on now Wes, you're giving away all the secrets.

[chad68]

There's this but it will take some searching:

http://www.atf.gov/about/foia/ffl-list.html

Thanks. I saw that link on the site before but my computer wanted to download some junk to view it in one form and viewing it in text form, looked almost like jibberish.

I was able to make sense out of the text file type and found it after about 20 minutes lol.

Before I found the guys Licesne number online and did the ez check, I had e-mailed the guy back and asked if he could send me his FFL license number. It's been like 14 hours and he didn't e-mail me back.

He could be busy, even though he replied to the first one at 6AM but was it rude of me to ask for his licesne number so I could confirm he's current and legit? Seems like it would be a good thing for both people to know and be able to say hell yes I'm legit, here's my number, FAX me the info.

Or maybe it's just another case of the second e-mail= no replies. I don't know if it's just me or what but if I e-mail a business in regards to a business transaction, product question, service question or a question about anything and I have to ask a second question, in a second e-mail, people seem like they just say egh screw it and don't bothering answering e-mails. Maybe I'm nuts but it seems like the deeper we get into the recession, the worse customer service is getting. That seems totally opposite of what it should be. I would think people would want to go out of their way to get your money, especially for a guy that FFL's out of his house.

[tenpercentfirearms]

Thanks. I saw that link on the site before but my computer wanted to download some junk to view it in one form and viewing it in text form, looked almost like jibberish.

I was able to make sense out of the text file type and found it after about 20 minutes lol.

Before I found the guys Licesne number online and did the ez check, I had e-mailed the guy back and asked if he could send me his FFL license number. It's been like 14 hours and he didn't e-mail me back.

He could be busy, even though he replied to the first one at 6AM but was it rude of me to ask for his licesne number so I could confirm he's current and legit? Seems like it would be a good thing for both people to know and be able to say hell yes I'm legit, here's my number, FAX me the info.

Or maybe it's just another case of the second e-mail= no replies. I don't know if it's just me or what but if I e-mail a business in regards to a business transaction, product question, service question or a question about anything and I have to ask a second question, in a second e-mail, people seem like they just say egh screw it and don't bothering answering e-mails. Maybe I'm nuts but it seems like the deeper we get into the recession, the worse customer service is getting. That seems totally opposite of what it should be. I would think people would want to go out of their way to get your money, especially for a guy that FFL's out of his house.

People might be out of town, on vacation, they might only work certain hours, or your next e-mail may hit a spam filter.

[lazyworm]

Or you can tell us the name. I'm sure some calgunner in your area would know.

[kemasa]

It is reasonable for the FFL to give you the information so that you can check the FFL status on the BATF ezcheck web page, IF you are doing a transaction with the FFL. Don't expect it if you are just asking questions, some will give it, others might not.

[SDProtection]

I was told by the ATF that an FFL is not supposed to give a private citizen a copy of their FFL. They are to be given the numbers nessasary to EZ Check but that is it. I havn't taken the time to look up the fed code on this but have followed their explanation.

[kemasa]

There is no requirement for a FFL to give a copy of their FFL to a non-licensee, but there is no law regarding it one way or another. The BATF tells FFLs to not give a copy to non-licensees as well. The bottom line is that it is best to not give a copy of your FFL to non-licensees as it is not required and can sometimes lead to problems (such as your information being used in ways that you don't want). Consider it as a need to know basis, even though all of the information printed on the FFL can be found elsewhere. What can not be found elsewhere is the actual version of the FFL (background, lettering size, etc.), which if it does not match your actually FFL, it makes it easier to show that you had nothing to do with any problems.

[chad68]

Just to clarify I wasn't asking the FFL for a hard copy or even soft copy of the guys actual licesne, just needed enough of the lic. number to verify it's valid/current with Ez check.

The FFL did evnetually e-mail his number back. He is all legit and is even one of Buds Guns 'prefered' FFL's for my area, though I'm not buying from Buds.

I will probablly give him a call Monday or Tuesday.

On a different note what do the license numbers that are "X'ed" out mean? I'm guessing something that is sensitive info of some sort?

Thanks.

[Mssr. Eleganté]

...On a different note what do the license numbers that are "X'ed" out mean? I'm guessing something that is sensitive info of some sort?

ATF has set up the ezcheck FFL verification system to use only certain numbers from the actual license number. So FFLs will often X out the numbers you don't need to use on the ezcheck system. Here's the breakdown for what all of the digits in a license number mean...

digit 1: BATFE Region
digit 2,3: IRS District
digit 4,5,6: County of the State
digit 7,8: Type of License
digit 9,10: Expiration Date Code
digit 11-15: Sequence Number of License

For the ezcheck system they don't ask for the type of license, the county or the expiration date. This is probably just to help prevent unscrupulous people from producing counterfeit versions of licenses.

[chad68]

ATF has set up the ezcheck FFL verification system to use only certain numbers from the actual license number. So FFLs will often X out the numbers you don't need to use on the ezcheck system. Here's the breakdown for what all of the digits in a license number mean...

digit 1: BATFE Region
digit 2,3: IRS District
digit 4,5,6: County of the State
digit 7,8: Type of License
digit 9,10: Expiration Date Code
digit 11-15: Sequence Number of License

For the ezcheck system they don't ask for the type of license, the county or the expiration date. This is probably just to help prevent unscrupulous people from producing counterfeit versions of licenses.

Thanks for the info. That all makes sense.

[kemasa]

FFLs will often send out their FFL number is two different ways, the first is as 9-99-99999, which are the numbers which are needed for the ezcheck web page, but could confuse some people since the number is a longer and has Xs on some of the fields. Others will include the Xs, which make it longer.

The first three and last five are all that are needed to make it unique.

[chad68]

I don't know about this online gun buying stuff. I'm nervous enough as it is and have been trying all morning to get people on the phone. FFL doesn't answer his phone. Trying to place my order over the phone and Personalsecurityzone.com doesn't answer their phone either. Tried calling Beretta to order something from them and they don't answer their phone either.

Makes me feel so much more at ease