What should I do?

[acespawnshop]

Ok so we get our fair share of interstate transfers. We had a situation arise over the weekend. First let me get some backstory to you and then I'll ask my question.

We had a customer contact us about shipping a gun in from a seller online. We agreed to help and asked the buyer if he was buying from a dealer or individual. He informed me that the gun was coming from a dealer. He bid on the item, won, and we were contacted by him asking to make arrangements to receive this gun. I got an email from the seller asking for a copy of our license. Before I send out a copy I wanted to be sure this guy is another FFL and not an individual. We have a store policy against sending copies out to private parties.

In my email I ask him directly, Are you a FFL? The response I got back from him was cryptic and said that he was a dealer. So, I asked again, sorry to be redundant but you are an FFL right? He again emails back and says he is a dealer and has shipped to CA before and is familiar with the process. Strange to me so I ask again FFL right? Finally he states that he is a dealer "in the fact that he owns a music store and that makes him a dealer"

My reply is that sorry but we only send our license out to other FFL's and to just ship the rifle to us along with a copy of his state ID for our records.

4 days later...... I get another email from the buyer saying that he confirmed the seller received his payment but seller is saying he cant ship until he gets our license. I email him back and say Isn't this the guy who is a private party? He confirms and indicates to me that the seller misled him also into thinking he was a dealer of firearms.

We both email him and explain that its legal for him to ship directly and he doesn't need a license for that. I know Its allowed, but not recommended to send out our license, again just our store policy not to do it.

Now he gets snippy with us and emails back that he is familiar with all the firearms laws and he "buys and sells firearms all the time and always gets copies of licenses and doesn't have issues with all the other FFL's." More than the occasional sale it seems too.

So now I have my suspicions that this guy is masquerading around as a dealer online. At first he told the buyer he was a dealer, then he tried to deceive me about this too. I have sent a license to a guy before because his local fedex office had a policy that they wanted a copy of the license to be included in the shipment. We called his local FedEx Office spoke with the manager and confirmed. We gladly complied with his request and sent him a "file copy only" license. So we are flexible on our "no FFL to individuals" policy but this guy just seemed fishy to me from the beginning.

OK, sorry for all the banter, but here is my questions:
1. Should I even accept this rifle from this guy and transfer for the buyer?
2. Is this something that I should call ATF about?

In my opinion it seems like this guy is either trying to act as a dealer without a license or he is just a wannabe FFL who likes to collect peoples FFLs. My worry is that if this guy was deceitful from his first email why would I supply him with a copy

[SRedmon]

I would error on the side of caution. Tell the seller to ship the rifle with ID or send/fax FFL over. As the selling party he will be the one REQUIRED to send one or the other. As the receiving FFL you are only required to send your license to another FFL.

[kemasa]

Personally, I would get a copy of the seller's ID before giving any of your information, otherwise you will never get it. Send him the first 3 and last 5 of your FFL after you get a copy of his ID, if you want to deal with him at all. Since he lied about his being a dealer, most likely it would be best to avoid dealing with such a person. It would be a problem for your customer though.

Send him this as well:

There is no requirement for FFLs to give a copy of their FFL to non-licensees,
please see the end of Page 2, beginning of Page 3:

http://www.atf.gov/files/publications/newsletters/ffl/ffl-newsletter-2008-11.pdf

With respect to FedEx, you can call Corp. and get the local office corrected. Corp. does not require nor want the local offices to get copies of licenses, there is some legal liability in doing so. If your FFL is abused, you could claim it was from them. Don't violate good practices due to the stupidity of other places.

It sounds like the person is an unlicensed dealer, so informing the BATF might save some others some grief, but I also doubt that anything would be done about it due to limited resources.

[zinfull]

Did you try and give him your number so he could verify you are a FFL online. He may only be trying to make sure it is a proper store.

[acespawnshop]

I sent him the # so he could verify.

[kemasa]

If you gave him the information to check your FFL and he does not want to ship, then it is time to walk away.

I had a case where the seller demanded my FFL and I sent the information showing that there was no requirement. He kept making up excuses as to why he did not ship, such as not getting my email. It turned out that he was a scammer and did not actually have the firearm at all. Mail fraud charges and a visit from the local sheriff convinced him to refund the buyer's money.

[acespawnshop]

Thanks I sent that link to the seller along with a nicely worded, but serious letter explaining he can either do it this way or find somebody else.

Thanks for the $.02 on this one everyone.

[acespawnshop]

I sent an email to the buyer also expressing my concerns over this transaction.

Guess I shouldn't have tried to make the pig sing!

[acespawnshop]

Wow so I get an email now from this guy saying that will I accept this gun from another FFL and will I send my license to that FFL. I say of course and then he replies with well why not me! Then he proceeds to tell me he is a licensed insurance broker now. Guess he sells insurance out of his music store. What a whack job. I told the buyer if it comes from another FFL great if not this flake can go take a hike.

[Vertigofirearms]

Sorry to hear this guy is giving you trouble Aces. I would say it isn't worth breaking your own rules and tell the buyer what you think of this seller

[kemasa]

It sounds like it would be best to walk away from this mess. If the guy does not understand that there is a difference in sending your FFL to another FFL vs. this clown, he never will. Is it really worth the possible problems?

Remember, if you email your FFL to another FFL, consider how you will determine if the email address is really going to the FFL instead of a fake email address which goes to a non-FFL (been there, done that).

[acespawnshop]

Yea, Its now Tuesday am, and this guy was supposed to go to another store in his area and have them ship it to me. I agreed to that, but on Friday last week he was supposed to get in touch with that dealer and still hasn't. I think this guy is a fraud and snaked the buyer out of their money.

[Boogaloo]

Yeah, there seems to be a few of these guys out there. And here I thought I was the ONLY one who got them.... Not that I am happy this is happening to you Aces, but I am glad it's not just me!

I do what Kemasa suggested to me offline and what he suggests here in this thread. If the seller is NOT an FFL, then I REQUIRE a copy of their valid state issued photo ID before I give them the go ahead to ship the firearm. I also preface that by saying that I will reject any firearms shipments from non FFL's if I do not have the ID in advance, and then I also take it one step further by stating that the firearm will be surrendered to local LE if it arrives without a photo ID in advance, and no return shipping payment has been received within 24 hours.

This seems to send a pretty clear message that I will not transfer, accept or store a firearm without proper ID from the seller.

Just as a side note, I had one of these 2 days ago. The purchaser contacted me through gunbroker (email), gave me the sellers email and asked me to send them my FFL. I copied the seller and the buyer with that exact message (above) and got some push back from the seller and the buyer. Ultimately (yesterday) the seller sent the photo ID, and the buyer contacted me outside of gunbroker through direct email. Turns out the buyer is a very high ranking county official. Without giving away the potential identity of the buyer, lets just say that they know the law WAYYYYYY better than I do.

Moral of the story.... NEVER WAIVER from your store policy when it comes to legal issues, or even potential legal issues. The $55.00 (or whatever) transfer fee you make is just not worth it. Plus, given the current political climate in California with regards to firearms, anything could be a test looking for a failure. I sure don't want to be "that guy" who failed the "test".

One side note.

I also give the non licensee (seller) the first 3 and last 5 of my FFL and direct them to FFL EzCheck. I instruct them to verify my FFL there, and to do a screen grab of the info returned by EzCheck, and print it out for their records. That way they have proof that my FFL was in fact valid on the day they shipped the firearm. Just as good as having a copy of my FFL as far as they are concerned, and covers your bases without giving non licensees a copy of your FFL.

[acespawnshop]

We gave him the EZ check website and first 3 and last 5 to verify. This wasn't acceptable to him and he went to his local FFL to ship us the gun. At that point that FFL in Oregon schooled him on the law and told him he was acting stupid.

$55 fee! I wish, since we are a pawn shop most of our income comes from interest and such, we don't rely on firearm sales or fees much, we do it because everyone who works here is a gun nut and pro 2A. We advertise on gunbroker $35 transfer fee, but also say if the customer is an NRA, Calguns, or other pro 2A rights group member we cut our fee to $25. Police, Firemen, Medical, Military guys get that discount too. We like to do transfers as a service to good honest pro-gun guys like ourselves, and our fee is basically just enough for me to cover the cost of the transaction and the employees salary for the time they spend on the transfer.

I'm glad to do it because before I was a business owner and FFL I would have loved for a place to go to that had a reasonable fee instead of the higher priced stores that were in my area at the time. I would have bought more online back when if I had a store to send my guns to that were a little less pricey.

I understand that the total cost of the transaction for most gun shops are higher and they have to weigh the cost of their own time vs the price they are willing to charge. But I am fortunate in my situation to be able to do this stuff cheap because my main source of income is not firearms related.

Thats why when I get this dingbat in Oregon messing with my customer's gun purchase it irks me to no end. I don't care about my $25 off this transaction, I just want this guy to get his gun that he paid for. BTW This customer who I won't name is a fellow calgunner who found my shop from one of the posts on here or the FFL map. So I'm really pissed that this dude is screwing up the transaction for this buyer.

Side note, we figured it out and the firearm is on its way here.