So I purchased a CZ TSO 9mm from an online dealer. It was a factory blem model. These guns can be show samples/range guns or have cosmetic imperfections. it was listed at 1450, a decent discount from the 1700 or so they seem to go at. This site (which I won't name until this is resolved) says they do real time stock, they were showing one in stock. Just the one. I was wary about buying it sight unseen. They had this posted on the listing:
"Factory BLEM ModelBLEM models are determined as blemished units by the manufacturer. They are mechanically sound and carry a full mechanical warranty. BLEM FIREARMS may show signs of being used, handled, fired from factory demonstrations. Condition, contents and/or components are subject to change without notice. For additional inquires regarding BLEM firearms, please contact us."

So I called the branch of the company where it was in stock and spoke to a guy and asked what catch was, what was wrong with it etc. he said that it had very minor cosmetic issues but had a full warranty and was otherwise the same as any other TSO. So I placed my order. It got to my FFL and they pulled it out of the case, which they kept behind the counter, and I was admiring the pistol as the transfer went through.

I moved to put the gun back in the giant case it comes with and noticed that there were 2 empty slots where the extra mags should be. I asked the FFL and they said they only pulled the pistol to log it, nothing else. I went home and dd some searching with google to ensure that im not crazy, that they do come with 3 mags. I called the place and spoke to someone about this. After being put on hold They came back and said that it was well known in the warehouse that this particular blem gun only has one magazine, that other possible buyers called and they told them about the missing mags. Whoever I spoke to did not tell me it was missing, even when I specifically asked what was wrong or missing etc, the employee said it had just the minor scratches. I told them that I felt like I was sold a bit of a false bill of goods, as this information would have made me reconsider my purchase. if it was a glock with 20 dollar mags it wouldn't be a huge deal, but this is basically 200 dollars of missing parts, which, once replaced, pretty much negates the savings of buying the blem. They said they couldn't send me extra mags at no charge but offered me 10% off the cost. I told them I would think about it because I think I could find them a bit cheaper elsewhere, even without the discount. I am very much not happy about this situation, as I specifically called them to talk about this particular gun and the person told me I was getting a complete package.

So my options are,

1) accept the 10% off, basically saving 8 bucks

2) try to negotiate a better discount, although i think this was offered in accordance with their margins

3) find them somewhere else

4) dispute with my credit card company. Amex has been awesome about buyer protection in the past.  I feel like I was sold a false bill of goods, sort of a lie of omission. had they told me the mags were missing I would have just got the regular one, at maybe 100 bucks more once all is said and done. This is what I am leaning towards. its not a 500 dollar purchase, its 1500. For that price I expect a little bit more I guess.

Am I being unreasonable? These mags are the most expensive I have ever purchased, and I thought 5.56 circle 10s were an oof.  Any alternative suggestions?


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So im adding more info and some proof. there been a lot of misperceptions and outright falsehoods. the biggest is that RG claims i waited a month to dispute the charge.
This is sort of true, but not the whole truth. It was a month from the order, but only 2 weeks from when i actually got the firearm. Should i dispute it while its waiting to be shipped?

Order was placed july 21

Order wasn't shipped until july 29

order wasn't delivered until july 31

I wasnt able to go pick it up until Aug 5th

Aug 5 - pick up gun, call riflegear for about 20 mins as soon as i get home

Aug 5- Benny from RG tells me that a return is out of the question, since it was transferred. says i can buy the mags from them and they will give me 10% off that purchase, a savings of about 15 dollars total, off another order

Aug 20 - unsatisfied with their proposed resolution, I file dispute.

Aug 21 - Amex accepts my dispute and sends me a letter saying so. Letter is received within a few days of mailing.

Sept 4 - get a call from rifle gear THREATING TO CALL THE ATF AND MY LOCAL LE UNLESS I DROP MY DISPUTE THAT DAY. Additional lies include "you cant chargeback firearms" and "you dont have the right to file a dispute with us". This was well after amex would have mailed them a letter on aug 21 informing them of the dispute. 1 week after they were notified assuming the amex letter took a week to reach them, after they are made well aware of the dispute and the process (and how you aren't supposed to reach out to the buyer, or especially threaten them), they call me. right after they called me, I call amex to tell them what just happened and they are blown away by it. Later, RG posts here on arf, when i didn't even name them in my OP

Oct 22- Amex says will be resolved by then, but I haven't received any communications from them. They should send a letter saying what they decided and why

some supporting documentation



order






amex letter, they reversed the whole charge even though i wanted the cost of me having to go buy the missing mags deducted from the overall price. RG told me i was getting a cosmetic blem gun with a factory mechanical warranty but had everything else a regular TSO had at X price. I was ok with that price. I was not ok having to spend more money to make up for their error in describing it on the phone.



dated call log, showing that they called me, and then i called amex right after, google the numbers





my screenshot of their call. You can see its incoming. You can see the time is green by im on the line with amex. i fat fingered it and accidently called them while trying to take a screenshot. that's the 7 second outgoing call

So, heres the question... why the fuck would they call me 2 weeks after i filed a dispute, after they were clearly aware of the dispute, despite that being a gross violation of amex policies and procedures? Not only that, but the dispute is still under investigation. Its not done. Maybe they will win? But they didn't want to chance they might lose, they wanted it closed.

In the calguns thing, RG says that i didnt seem that upset when i called them when i got the gun. and i wasn't. its business. im not going to yell or swear or get angry bc that doesn't help. I'm a reasonable, rational person. But when you call to make threats against me, that makes it personal. That is utterly unacceptable and it ceases being business. They tried to bully me into dropping this thing, that i have a right to do under the terms we all agreed on, using the threat of government force and ruining my life from the one government agency everyone fears. Fuck them for that. I don't think anyone can disagree that that was wrong.  

Go to CZC and get czechmate extended mags.

The mags aren't 140mm so your replacements are going to be around $48 plus $35 for the base pads and any springs you may want so the price is honestly a wash in that regard. Depending on how the gun looks I'd just take the 10% and move on, it's not worth the hassle and you'll be $50 ahead minus the damage. If you hadn't already made the transfer I would have sent it back, that was the time to make the acceptance call.

If you're going to use it in competition you'll be adding more scratches anyhow.

ETA: I ordered these two weeks ago.

https://gunzonedeals.com/product/CZ-11172-CZ-75-9MM-20-RD-BLUE-FINISH

I like the Taylor Freelance design a whole lot better.

If it’s true it only comes with one there’s not much to do. If CZ confirms that as the case of just take the discount and move on.  

You always have to check all the details. I have seen similar stories numerous times.

I called CZ USA. Their blems might have nothing at all or they might have the full retail kit, it's a case by case thing, there is no policy.

That's what bugs me the most about this whole, I called the dealer about the specific gun I was buying and they said it had everything, when it did not. If they were honest/correct about it, I would have bought something else

If you feel like you were misled I would call them again and tell them what you want. If you are going to do the chargeback or whatever let them know.

OP, I can understand your perspective and agree, if I purchased a 'blem' I would be thinking 'cosmetic' issue only, not 'missing stuff'.

Before going down the charge back route, consider the cost that you will incur.  Your FFL cost won't get reimbursed and you may have to pay to return the pistol.  Consider the cost of 2 mags is ~$50 each + whatever the orange base pads run, compared to what it will cost to 'return' the pistol.  With that in mind, I'd try to negotiate a higher discount on the 2 mags.

Finally, double-check that you received the other 'stuff' that ships with a TSO.  This would be a thumb rest, extra slide lock release, slide lock pins, springs etc.

All of it is there, except the mags, which they claimed to have told other possible customers who called about the missing mags, but not me. Amex is great at buyer protection, I had an issue with a rental car scam in Poland ( with avis no less!) and they refunded me the excessive charges, leaving the correct amount on my card. I would be asking for the cost of 2 mags. The site i bought from says to call them to talk about it before buying this specific blem and I did. they didnt give an accurate or complete rundown of the condition and I asked.  

Looks like you saved about $250 on the purchase.
In this day and age, thats not a bad deal at all.

Add in the cost of two stock mags, $100..... Now you save $150.

You would have paid any transfer fees, so you cant count that.

$150 off is an avg. deal.

Not like you are not going to buy 3 more mags anyways

Stock TSO mags are around $80 not $50 but like I said earlier they're not 140mm so they would need an upgrade anyhow. He's essentially is saving around $50-$80 for a blem, hardly worth going to war over.

CZ TSO mag SKU: 11175

You still haven't described the blem and how bad it is, this can and should affect our opinion of the deal. Honestly you're still saving money over their normal sales price even with the two mags missing and you accepted the transfer. Trying to hit them for $160 at this point is questionable.

ETA: I'm not defending their shitty customer service, they obviously dropped the ball but you should have refused the transfer if it was that big of a deal to you. Now that you have the gun in hand look at it as a cheap life lesson and don't be angry over your purchase, get the proper competition mags and go enjoy the gun.

His sticking point is that he felt he was misled.

OP- Let us know which path you're going to take and where it leads. Interesting story.  I can see valid reasons for either choice.

Understood, he just looses some leverage when he makes the transfer. They should sell him mags at cost imo but another $160 on top doesn't feel reasonable. You're talking about a new TSO for sub $1300. It sounds like both sides screwed up to me, not so much for him not thinking to ask but for accepting the gun without the mags and for their representative not giving a full description. For all we know this is a shop that sells 100 guns a day, would the average counter jockey even think to point that out? It's very likely not malicious.

ETA: When I was looking for a TSO not long ago I called a local shop who told me they had one, it was an SP-01 Orange, and that is considered to be one of the better shops in the area.

Actually happened twice, except it was a Shadow 2 Orange at another. If a halfway competent shop gets that wrong what makes you think they even know how many mags it's supposed to have?

They could look in the box.  It’s not that hard. CZ definitely made it confusing with the orange releases. If nothing had been said before the sale I’d say take it as a lesson but that’s not what happened.

I filed a dispute with amex. I am asking for a credit for the cost of 2 TSO mags, plus tax and shipping. The way I see it is this - they put no specific details on their website and say that if you want the details, you have to call. When you call to find out the details, literally asking "so whats wrong with it, whats the catch, aside from cosmetics is there anything wrong with it or anything missing?" the details relayed to you had better be accurate, since that is what will make or break the purchase. It would have taken them 2 seconds to add in to the website or to say over the phone " it only has 1 mag, not the normal 3". The whole point it buying the TSO was to be a turnkey entry into USPSA, all I was planning on buying was a rig to carry it all. We will see what happens. I sent amex a statement, lots of product screenshots of normal and blem product description and photos (they are the same, stock photos) and phone records.

Should have posted a review of the purchase on their social media. Simply explain what happened. That usually gets someone's attention.

Finestkind

Big update:

I filed a dispute with Amex after my good faith attempts at negotiation failed. Their attitude was if we made a mistake and led you to believe something that wasn't true, too bad for you. So It's my right as an Amex cardholder to dispute a full or partial charge and they are bound to respect that process by their CC processor agreements.  I was very reasonable with my request with amex, the cost of 2 mags.


Out of the blue they called me today, threatening to call the police/atf and report it as a stolen firearm, unless I agreed to drop the dispute with Amex. They were adamant that I didn't have the right to dispute charges via Amex from them and were literally yelling at me on the phone, threatening to try to essentially ruin my life. Fuck these guys.

I called Amex. They were absolutely horrified that this happened.  That is a huge no no, as a payment processee they have to abide by Amex's policies which includes Amex being the neutral investigator in disputes between customers and merchants. They make it very clear that the merchants are not to contact the customer, that everything has to go through American Express. Part of that process is Amex freezing funds as part of the investigation, they hold it and will then credit back to the merchant all, some or none of the disputed funds after they investigation is concluded.

I'm going to make it my mission in life to make sure this place gets its ability to accept credit cards gets revoked.

Thanks for the update OP.  Sounds like you're on the right side of this one.

You're welcome. I am so angry right now, it's not even funny

Someone just pointed me to this thread so I need to post my thoughts. I am not sure who you talked to that said it came with three magazines, but I guess I will have to take your word at that. If you have it in email please forward to [email protected]. We purposely do NOT list all the accessories or magazines that come in a blem package for this very reason - they are inconsistent and we don't want to have false information on our product page. We sell them as they come from CZ. You could have refused the transfer at your FFL and sent it back for a refund, but instead you took it home and now a month later you did a chargeback for the full amount of the firearm which is nearly $1500.00 Now you have our gun, and we have $0 payment. Why would we NOT consider that a stolen firearm?

Of COURSE we want you to drop the chargeback. Did you call CZ to find out if the blem packagae always includes 3 magazines? If that is the case, we would gladly ask CZ to send you the "missing" 2 magazines, or maybe they would have just sent them to you directly. How can you possibly think you are in the right here? And yes, if we do not receive payment for our firearm we will take action. What firearm dealer wouldn't in this situation?

Shit's gettin spicy

Heh.

Not to throw fuel on the fire, but BOTH TSOs I have bought came with 3 magazines.  

Anyways...

Attached File

What an illuminating reply from Riflegear.com.

One more user and company on the Ignore and Shit lists.

Woulda been less of a headache to just give him the 2 missing mags imo.

In

Attached File

I will state this about RifleGear:

They are pretty straight up. I have dealt with them a fair amount since they came to Dallas. Nothing but positive experiences.

I may not like some of their clientele, but the staff has always been top notch for a gun shop.

Even the blemish models I bought were a decent deal.

Like I stated up above, the cost savings OP got was OK, even if he bought a mag or two.

However, if I were RifleGear, I would just sent out a mag and saved the labor involved in this silly  event.

I wont say anything negative about either side, but this is a bit of unneeded drama.

Hmmmm....

Just imagine if you had done the right things, you would have avoided this and potential customer loss.
I would have done the same as OP ,  just on principal. its a bit common for the mag swap and removal.

I was with the OP right up until he decided to change the purchase price with an end-around run.

You agreed to a price for a product. You had your chance at pickup when you stated you saw the product wasn’t what you expected. You cancel the sale at that time. Even after that, it sounds like the seller was being reasonable.

Going to AMEX to change the charges is BS. If you returned it, or never got it, by all means dispute the charges. But adjusting the selling price is not cool. Just like you say you wouldn’t have bought at that price (even though you did), they wouldn’t have sold at your new price.

If you’re not happy, return the item and cancel the sale.

ETA: the seller is acting like a child though, threatening to report a stolen firearm. It’s a civil matter, not criminal. So it’s a-holes colliding. Neither of you is completely right.

Ive done a chargeback before, way back when Dicks was pre-selling Troy AR rifles. They refunded 1 of them and then told me they had no record I paid for a 2nd rifle , they wrote it up as 2  orders in their system. When I called my bank they said there was 1 charge for both rifles, I couldnt do a half chargeback , it was all or nothing. So I did the chargeback for the whole amount rather than let them keep $900 after halfass cancelling my order.

Sounds like OP is in the same boat with AMEX.

Situations like these are an opportunity for a business to either improve their reputation or destroy it.

Which do you think your chosen course of action will do?

I don't know why a "blem" gun would be missing accessories, never seen that before from anyone else selling blems.

1450 isn't a great price if it is missing the mags considering how much the orange basepad magazines cost, or even the plain plastic basepad version that most just buy for extras.  I think I paid 1550 shipped from Fuquay Varina gun for both of my TSOs in 9mm.  The black plastic basepad mags are 40 to 45 each and the ones that the TSO comes with that have that orange aluminium base pad are at least 70 bucks.

Yeah, there is a panic on right now but from what I've seen more niche competition guns like this haven't been jumping up in price.  I'd be pretty unhappy about that whole deal too.

This right here... Additionally, 10% on $1,400 isn’t $8, dude.

I believe he was told 10% off the cost of 2 mags. I could have misunderstood though.

This is turning into a riflegear.com lost a customer thread, but not in a good way.

If the guy asked what's the deal, what is it missing and he wasn't told it was missing two magazines you should eat the 2 magazines. Stolen firearm over AMEX's chargeback procedures? You aren't winning over prospective clients, Bo.

OK - I see one point where things don't connect.

OP says he's disputing the value of the mags, not the entire purchase.
Shop claims he's trying to get all his money back.

Maybe Amex is freezing the entire transaction till the (partial) dispute is resolved and not doing an immediate full refund?

This.  

Note to self:  Don't buy from riflegear.com

I dunno, do shops get demos that only have 1 mag? Or do they have to put out one from stock?  That’s an honest question; I wouldn’t know.

Alternatively, maybe a shop closed and riflegear got their inventory to sell and that shop had separated the mags and sold or appropriated for personal use. Not trying to defend riflegear here, cuz threatening to report it stolen is a childish (and probably empty) threat.

In.

This.  What a shitty company.

Getting RifleGeard doesn't have the same ring as "Botached"

Since he asked them what was missing beforehand, I would say they owe him the magazines.

So, he got Botached at Riflegear.  Or maybe, Riflegear pulled a Botach.

I got Botached at OpticsPlanet, once.