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I dont really blame Armslist.. its their way of protecting users. The scammers were rampant on there.. I place all the blame on the sh*t individuals scamming people.

Thay being said, I dont sell high enough volumes of anything to justify paying to use their site. Its only when Ive grown bored or tired of a firearm or perhaps need funds to buy a new toy. I may as well do consignment at this point OR use this fantastic forum (more than I already do)
 
I dont really blame Armslist.. its their way of protecting users. The scammers were rampant on there.. I place all the blame on the sh*t individuals scamming people.

I get why they are doing it. Scammers are making the site unsafe in more than one way. The law suit being brought against them is rather redundant to the last one, but the anti 2A never stops trying. It might improve sales for paying vendors, but everyone else including pawn shops that had free accounts will likely just walk away.
 
I've bought and sold firearms online for over twenty-years, both for my private collection and a side business, and never really used Armslist. There was enough negative vibe from some of the listing and interactions that I didn't invest too much time. These days I only use Gunbroker and NWFA to buy sell firearms.

So, while I am not real familiar with their operation now, I can see how this move will cut down on the scammers and other fools.
 
I get why they are doing it. Scammers are making the site unsafe in more than one way. The law suit being brought against them is rather redundant to the last one, but the anti 2A never stops trying. It might improve sales for paying vendors, but everyone else including pawn shops that had free accounts will likely just walk away.
Exactly. Armslist basically nuked themselves.
 
I got the Armslist email today and just checked out the Armslist site where I have a couple of things listed.

With this new website change (that I didn't know was coming), I can't even edit my existing listings unless I upgrade.

At the moment I'm not going to upgrade as it doesn't seem worth it if buyers also have to pay to communicate as that will drastically shrink the audience.

Time will tell if I change my mind to stay on Armslist.
 
I've scored some good deals from AL over the years.
I've never been scammed or the such, but I only bought local and I was born cautious/skeptical and have been loosing ground ever since. o_O

IMO, AL not letting buyers contact sellers without paying is dumb.
 
any one that wants to post adds on there and not pay the loop hole is go to your account edit your last recently sold add item to new one then reactivate it then it will post. It works for now save your money have not found a loop around the no contact.
 
any one that wants to post adds on there and not pay the loop hole is go to your account edit your last recently sold add item to new one then reactivate it then it will post. It works for now save your money have not found a loop around the no contact.

My account won't even let me see my ads to edit them. Ive used that trick previously though as I've had occasional issues posting to the site in the past
 
Thanks for the heads-up. I've got one item listed on Armslist but haven't tried to make any new listings lately.

Wow, you get five (5) whole listings for your $6.99 a month.

I didn't even know what ACH was until I looked it up just now. Of course they don't want to take PayPal, that involves a fee for them just like a credit card. They want to charge users without having to pay out for receivable overhead.

I see this as a big step backward for their business model. Armslist has been the venue for bottom-feeding in the gun world. People use it EXACTLY because it has been free. There are better ways to sell guns, you just have to pay to use them. The biggest flaw, requiring payment to contact a seller. True, this will cut down on the scummers who troll for seller idiots to prey on. But my instinct is, it is fatal for sellers. It's enough of an obstacle to keep a lot of people from contacting sellers. Just my opinion.

We should've seen this coming, I guess. I didn't fail to notice that twice in the past year or so, they have reduced the number of free listings you could post.

Maybe this is the future for a lot of free stuff on the internet. We've gotten used to "free" and now maybe it's going away. I hate looking stuff up on Google related to newspaper articles. I click on the entry, then find out the online newspaper requires a subscription to read the article. They've got to make their money too. But I don't buy information that way.
 
I put my car up on CL, paid $5.00 for the 30 day ad, and all I've gotten are bubble gum scammers contacting me via text, wanting vehicle "verification" reports form sites I've never heard of. Obviously the hard working citizens still pay with the time wasters, scammers and other malarkey that comes with selling your own vehicles online. Do these idiots have nothing else better to do than to try and scam the lawful citizens out just trying to make a square deal and move on? AL will be rife with scammers as they always find a way to game the system. After all, they are scammers lol
 
Sad to say, I'm not surprised at all. Unfortunately, there are very, very few revenue options for firearm websites due to the vehemently anti-gun nature of the advertising industry. Not a single large ad network will touch a website like this or Armslist, and as most people know, advertising is the primary funding model for 90% of the free stuff you get on the internet. The ads you see running here (aside from ads for our Supporting Vendors) are literally the scraps. We don't get paid for displaying them, we only get a small portion of each sale (~5%) made after someone clicks one of the ads here. It wasn't always this way, back in 2010 our advertising brought it thousands per month. In the past month we've made a whole $150 from banner ads. I'm not joking when I say we couldn't do this without our Supporting Members, you guys directly provide around 70% of our revenue.

Honestly, I place most of the blame with the people in this industry who actually have money, primarily the manufacturers and large retailers. We receive zero support from these guys despite the fact that this industry wouldn't be a fraction of the size without communities such as this. Not only do they not support us, they do support anti-gun ad networks such as Google and Facebook with their advertising dollars. Though those networks won't allow us to serve ads through their networks, they're happy to take the manufacturers money and display gun ads on non-firearm websites. The firearm community really needs to pressure manufacturers and the larger retailers to consider how they're spending their marketing dollars.

I definitely think this is a mistake on the part of Armslist. Short term, I bet they'll increase their revenue at least five-fold, but the moment they made this change the website began on a downhill trajectory. People have proposed we do the same here many times over the years, but it's just not worth the long term impact (that and I view NWFA as a sort of 'public service' for gun owners, which should be free). Like everything, there's a balance, and in my opinion they went too far.

I began developing our new classified system last month and these sorts of questions have already come up a dozen times. How do we want the system to work? What should people get for free? How do we provide additional benefit for those who help support the site financially? That last one really summarizes my outlook on the subject; provide a basic level of service for free and then go up with features and benefits. There are people who have been abusing this for years, people with literally hundreds of transactions under their belt who've never contributed a dime (and are likely proud of the fact). With this new system we'll be taking steps to limit those guys a bit, but I am as committed as ever to making sure our classifieds stay free :s0155:
 
Honestly, I place most of the blame with the people in this industry who actually have money, primarily the manufacturers and large retailers. We receive zero support from these guys despite the fact that this industry wouldn't be a fraction of the size without communities such as this. Not only do they not support us, they do support anti-gun ad networks such as Google and Facebook with their advertising dollars. Though those networks won't allow us to serve ads through their networks, they're happy to take the manufacturers money and display gun ads on non-firearm websites. The firearm community really needs to pressure manufacturers and the larger retailers to consider how they're spending their marketing dollars.

This. ^^ I was surprised ALL the many gun related businesses just sat on their thumbs while Or and Wa passed the universal background check laws. Then those same businesses step up to do us the favor of charging $40.00-$50.00, or more, to do a 15-20 minute private transfer. :mad:
 
This. ^^ I was surprised ALL the many gun related businesses just sat on their thumbs while Or and Wa passed the universal background check laws. Then those same businesses step up to do us the favor of charging $40.00-$50.00, or more, to do a 15-20 minute private transfer. :mad:

While I think some local businesses do share some of the burden (especially the ones who sat by knowing that it would benefit their bottom line), I'm mostly talking about the BIG guys such as Cabela's (and to a lesser extent Sportsman's, Fisherman's, etc). We do have some fantastic local shops who are really stepping up, such as @Sporting Systems.
 
While I think some local businesses do share some of the burden (especially the ones who sat by knowing that it would benefit their bottom line), I'm mostly talking about the BIG guys such as Cabela's (and to a lesser extent Sportsman's, Fisherman's, etc). We do have some fantastic local shops who are really stepping up, such as @Sporting Systems.

YES! To all. I don't necessarily think local gun shops consciously thought about a windfall after the law took affect. I mean, we're a bunch of "Thrifty" kinds of guys! We're not going to pay 50 bucks for a transfer if we can drive an extra 20 miles to get it for 25 buck! :D No. I believe the retailers should have stood up for what was right. That would have been putting some $$/resources into the defeat of, or the campaign coffers of gun friendly politicians.
 
YES! To all. I don't necessarily think local gun shops consciously thought about a windfall after the law took affect. I mean, we're a bunch of "Thrifty" kinds of guys! We're not going to pay 50 bucks for a transfer if we can drive an extra 20 miles to get it for 25 buck! :D No. I believe the retailers should have stood up for what was right. That would have been putting some $$/resources into the defeat of, or the campaign coffers of gun friendly politicians.

We have to remember that at least here in Oregon SB941 was passed using emergency actions, not a bill or something sent to the citizens to vote on. Washington is a mess more than once.

Many of the gun stores or smaller ffl have kept background prices reasonable. Others gouge. Ive heard one is 75 now. Wont name them, but needless to say I will never step foot in there if I need something 2A related
 

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