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The buyer knew this was going to ship to his FFL, I mentioned it before he paid

Reminds me of a guy who bought a NIB revolver from me on GB. It was his first time ever buying a firearm online and wasn't aware that it had to got an FFL. I had to explain this to the muppet nearly a half dozen times before it sunk in that, no, I can't and I won't send you a handgun directly to your home address. He finally got me a valid FFL and it was done, but, sheez.
 
Looks odd. I'd have never shipped but weird their FFL is involved.

I mean if you don't have an FFL # to send it to, who's fault is that?

The problem could be if you ship, they could dispute the charge with their card company which in turn will trickle down to PP reversing the payment because they don't want to be on the hook for the funds. Then you are the one getting hosed.

Too many red flags there.


There reallly arent any ways for the buyer to dispute friends and family. Its a cash transfer and PayPal has a pretty rigid terms on the F&F.
 
I did a real quick search, and it looks like you can indeed send F&F payment using a credit card (fee on his end). The only way he could come back on you, it looks to me, would be if he disputed it with his credit card.

Hence my suggestion to ask Paypal to reverse the payment. That way there would be nothing to come back on.

Either way, I hope it works out for you. About a decade ago during a scare, I got the bright idea to sell some magazines that I had laying around. I put them on Gunbroker with a low starting price, and they sold high. The buyer begged to pay with paypal, and I relented even though I had said "No Paypal" in the listing.

When he paid, he put "Gunbroker Listing #xxxxx" in the comments. Apparently that was a red flag for paypal, and some paypal person actually looked up and gunbroker listing and saw "scary magazines". They froze my account and called me on the phone. I said it wouldn't happen again and they un-froze it. They also said that the only reason they didn't freeze it and take the money was because they did see the "no paypal" in the listing. I only use them for ebay now. They are indeed serious if something gets flagged in their system.
 
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There reallly arent any ways for the buyer to dispute friends and family. Its a cash transfer and PayPal has a pretty rigid terms on the F&F.
You are right. I think the warning goes to show there is zero recourse so "caveat emptor".
 
I never heard of a scammer sending actual money, their goal is always to try and get money from the victim. My guess is some kind of moron, or drunk, maybe even both.
There are a lot of variations on it, but in one of the popular ones they will send a check that has been stolen, washed or whatever for more than what you agreed on. They will then ask you to return some of the balance, but keep some extra for your troubles. A few weeks later, the bank finally discovers that the check was bad. By this time the thief has your money and you owe the bank for the entire amount of the check. How you do this with FF I don't know, but I do recognize the speech pattern in the message, and most of them talk like that.
 
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... but I do recognize the speech pattern in the message, and most of them talk like that.

It's the meth maybe.

As an aside, one thing in his text made me question whether he should be owning guns: "I don't deal with stress to [sic] good". Let's face it, if completing a simple transaction for goods is too stressful for you to endure, ya might need to spend a weekend in the woowoo house.
 
There are a lot of variations on it, but in one of the popular ones they will send a check that has been stolen, washed or whatever for more than what you agreed on. They will then ask you to return some of the balance, but keep some extra for your troubles. A few weeks later, the back finally discovers that the check was bad. By this time the thief has your money and you owe the bank for the entire amount of the check. How you do this with FF I don't know, but I do recognize the speech pattern in the message, and most of them talk like that.
I get at least one of those with every ad I ever place on Craigs list. I have to laugh when I do but I have to guess some must still fall for it or they would not bother. Sad that some must still go for that.
 
Reminds me of a guy who bought a NIB revolver from me on GB. It was his first time ever buying a firearm online and wasn't aware that it had to got an FFL. I had to explain this to the muppet nearly a half dozen times before it sunk in that, no, I can't and I won't send you a handgun directly to your home address. He finally got me a valid FFL and it was done, but, sheez.
Now that is just another sad example of how many gun owners pay zero attention to laws. I am sure he watched the "news" talk about how easy it was to buy guns and he had no idea it was a lie.
 
It reminds me of the scammers I used to get on craigslist ALL THE TIME. my guess is they used a stolen card to pay for the item then will have the refund sent back for them to cash out. Dont know what your best bet is because sooner or later I imagine someone will come looking for that money. Either the bank or FBI. I'D wait it out or be pro active in reaching out to the fbi.
 
The language in the text is a dead give away in my opinion. I'm 99.9% certain this is a scam. I'm afraid if you refund the money he'll be long gone and you'll be on the hook for it. If you feel too guilty holding onto it you should contact your local fbi office.
 
I've read a number of firearms ads from Idaho... almost all of them will only sell to people that have a Concealed Carry Permit, or whatever it is called there, even tho permits are not always required to carry concealed there. They just don't want to sell to sketchy people and they know that a CCP requires a more thorough BGC.

Yes, here in Wash. before I-594 that was the working rule in the Wash. Arms Collectors. They required that members have a CPL or in lieu of that, the WAC would run a BGC and charge a fee. That way members had some assurance that they weren't selling among themselves to felons. It was self-policing and if a member sold to a non-member who walked in off the street and got caught, they were expelled. The weak link was that once a BGC had been done, for a long time there was no mechanism for look-back. A member could've subsequently racked up a felony without the knowledge of the WAC. Or in later years, a domestic violence beef. I'm not sure if WAC ever caught up with updating this information but it's a moot point now that I-594 is in effect. All transactions now must have a fresh BGC.
 
About "Friends and Family." From my experience, this is often used to by-pass payment of PayPal fees. This case might be a good example of why not to try to beat PayPal out of their money transfer fees. If you're gonna use the service at all. The sender doesn't gain by using F&F. It's the receiver (typically a seller) of the money who's trying to save on a fee. My sense is that when a seller specifies payment by F&F, regardless of the nature of the goods, they are giving up some measure of security.

I just read the OP again. This part:

Now he says his FFL hasn't received my money so they won't give me a copy of their FFL

I suppose the would-be buyer's communications skills could be so bad that his FFL dealer didn't understand what he wanted. Meaning, maybe the dealer thought what the guy was talking about was them ordering it for him. In which case pre-payment to that dealer would've been necessary. Still trying to make sense of what we're being told here.
 
My concern would be is if you send back another friends and family amount, if the original charge could be voided. So, it'd wind up minus the original amount, while the amount you sent would still be sent. The language skills, and funky situation scream "scam"

This is an ugly situation to be in, but I can't imagine someone would run game like this unless there was a way to get you in the end. F&F typically means you're safe from claims...but if someone demands their money back, you're creating a new transaction. It may be the same amount, but it's not the same money, you know?

...hopefully sleep deprivation didn't keep that from making sense.
 

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