I'm sitting here trying to run my first 4473 via the E-check system and so far am not very impressed with the government's web service.  Not like that's any kind of surprise, but still...  After 20 minutes and starting over a dozen times on the form because it took forever to figure out they were expecting "United States of America" as the answer for "place of birth" rather than a city and state, now I'm playing the waiting game.  How long does it normally take to return a result via the E-check system?

I've had em' take anywhere from 2 minutes to 20 minutes.

Thanks.  Fortunately this customer is an old friend who hasn't minded sitting here catching up on old times while we wait.

Hey bud, I've nothing to add, but can I ask, how long did it take for your registration for the E-Check system to go through once you filed your email?

I honestly don't recall.  I received my FFL around the first of July and the agent who did my interview told me that I would receive a "Welcome to the ATF" packet when I received my license, but the license showed up and 3 weeks later I still hadn't received any packet.  At that point I was tired of waiting so I got online and muddled my way through figuring out how to run a 4473.  Best I recall, getting set up to do the E-check was pretty well instant and I don't recall any long wait time.

As you would expect, my welcome packet finally showed up a few weeks after I'd already took it upon myself to order a bunch of forms and do the other stuff.  Typical government stuff...  

Ours was about 24hrs.

Thank you both gentlemen!

Uh, what?  It isn't expecting "United States of America" as the place of birth, but the state if USA, the country if not USA.  I know that "US" is a code option in that field, but I've only ever used the state.  The 2 letter code isn't 100% matched up to the postal code (NB is Nebraska for example, because NE is the Netherlands.)

If you just enter the first letter, it should show a list of options that match that (hence how you will notice NB for Nebraska....). The help guide calls it "predictive text."


The one that I had the hardest time figuring out was "Samoa".  Not "American Samoa", that's easy, but technically "Samoa" is "Western Samoa" to the FBI, so you find it under that.  and just typing in "Samoa" doesn't find anything.....

Edit to add:  I'm guessing you have a "Researching" status because you entered "US" and not the state of birth for the customer.  Longest "Researching" status I've had is 35 minutes (then they went on delay, thanks for wasting our time, a-holes!).  Most checks are instant (New status box the second I hit submit.). The blue Researching status as noted is typically anywhere from 2 to 40 minutes, with the averaging being about 10.  Instant responses mean there is nothing negative in the database that "hits", or it directly matches up to a Denied status (no human interaction.)  Researching status means it's been kicked up to an examiner (actual human) for further review.

All I can tell you is that I tried about a dozen different wordings of the city and state where this customer was born, but it would let me get finished with the third page before it would tell me that I'd entered an incorrect location, and then it wouldn't let me back up to the second page to make a change.  So every time I had to "X" out and start the form all over again.  If you look at the box on a paper 4473, it clearly asks for the city and state, so any logical person would conclude that they're looking for the same information on the online form.  I was so damn frustrated with the not being able to go back that I don't recall if I tried simply "Alabama" without the city name but again, I made the (incorrect) assumption that they were looking for the same information as the paper 4473.

There's your problem.
Question 11 on the 4473 wants both city and state, but the Echeck only cares about the state. Same as if you call in your NICS checks, all the CSR wants is state of birth.

After about 3 weeks of waiting, I used the online customer service form to ask about it and had a response within hours. I had my email wrong on the form the first time I sent it.