Armslist has "private" sales of "new" handguns well below "retail" sales....

tkdguy · Sep 19, 2020

Seems too good to be true. Likely scams? Any experience dealing with Armslist private sales?

Greenbug · Sep 19, 2020

100%
SCAM
GUARANTEED

Certaindeaf · Sep 19, 2020

Do you mean well below retail prices?
Your title makes no sense.

tkdguy · Sep 19, 2020

Certaindeaf said:
Do you mean well below retail prices?
Your title makes no sense.

Correct. Well below: 10-20 % below retail or pricing before the panic buying.

tkdguy · Sep 19, 2020

By example, retail glocks are now $699 vs "private" are $599.

Jonnyuma · Sep 19, 2020

tkdguy said:
By example, retail glocks are now $699 vs "private" are $599.

Wow... $700 Glocks?
Desperate times...

RainMan_PNW · Sep 19, 2020

Most likely scammers. Use a site like River of Guns to search for the same keywords and see if the same photo shows up in multiple postings. For a while, the same FDE MCX Virtus pistol on the same beige shag throw rug was popping up in every random corner of the country for sale for about $3-400 below "market" price. Obviously a scam and they just kept posting in a new city after they got flagged (or took some poor sucker's money).

papersoldier · Sep 19, 2020

Armslist is basically just a scam haven at this point. I don't go there anymore because of vast amount of fake posts.

Lasers · Sep 19, 2020

Get a phone number and only deal face to face, in public. Not much risk.

A couple of the best deals I've gotten have seemed too good to be true but were just motivated sellers that didn't want dink around with 1000 questions for weeks before getting cash in hand.

Couple deals suddenly wanted PayPal deposits to "hold" the item or weren't able to meet up but would ship with "50% upfront and 50% after inspection" , etc.. Nope, those are scams.

Wookie1 · Sep 19, 2020

I've dealt with craigslist/offerup/armslist/etc enough that 99% of the time I can spot a fake based off pictures, wording, and details. there is still good deals to be had just picked up a xps2 eotech for 200$ a couple weeks ago. a lot of times I see stuff cross posted from here other times I find good deals that are only there.

spider · Sep 19, 2020

Some guy sent me a next day air delivered check for $2500 for a rifle I am selling for $1000. Told me to deposit it, text him the receipt, and send the gun to his FFL with the excess cash.

I worked as a personal finance manager for 5 years and laughed at the audacity of this deal. Played along, called my local ATF office and filed a complaint with FTC, sent all the info over, opened the next day package with gloves, called the bank that the check was supposedly drafted from, to verify the account and name, no such name no such account. Before all this I used FFL ez check for the FFL he sent me, showed that it has a expiration date for January of 2021.

Googled and found out that some FF licenses can have expiration dates way into the future, while the FFL is being vetted or something along those lines.

So, I wait.

I send the person a handwritten deposit slip from the bank with my fake account info and everything and say the check is deposited. The scammer asks me for tracking info for the firearm. I send him a blank envelope with a photo in it, through UPS, I track the package and see that it had a delivery pick up diversion that is in Las Vegas, instead of the FFL address of Kentucky.

I sent him a photo of Donald Trump flipping the bird.

Never heard from them after that.

Makes me think of how many people went broke, lost a firearm and morale from these types of interactions.

If I put half of my talent into conning people, would this really be the scheme.