So the back story is I bought 3 silencerco cans when they were on sale in June of 2018. Since then I have had no follow thru from my dealer other then he is not sure what is going on. He will not respond to my texts/phone or emails and when I stop in he looks like a deer in head lights. I have called the atf and they said something is not right and to follow up with the dealer.  I have more details but I would rather share them with a lawyer. I am not new to the nfa game I have other items that went as they should have. Thanks

Rust law might be able to help

He seemed knowledgeable when I got my trust from him.

Surprised you would wait that long I would be going after the dealer give me the cans, or give me my money plus interest, the dealer sounds shady for not giving the accurate status of the order sounds like they F'ed up and refuse to own up.

When was your check cashed by the ATF?
When did you fill out all your Form 4 and trust?
Did you actually pay for all the cans?

You don't need a NFA specific lawyer, that's for the gun trusts.

Step 1 Pay for cans
Step 2 Write check to ATF for stamps and give to dealer
Step 3 finalize paperwork

You should do them all at the same time if you know what you're doing.

If the NFA branch doesn't have any info for you either A: You skipped one of the steps for almost 3 years (not dealer fault) or your dealer didn't send it out.

Honestly if you want to get technical, if you paid and skipped one of the steps the cans are more likely legally abandoned property.

We will see what a judge says. Wouldn’t it be easier for a dealer to just hold up his end of the deal? Nothing good will come out of screwing a costumer.

When did ATF cash your check? I assume you finished your paperwork etc. I know it's a dumb question but I know dealers that literally call people 20 times and they won't come fill out the paperwork, cut the stamp check etc. and they assume their clock with the NFA is running, nope. It STARTS when you have a complete package sent off AND the NFA cashes the check, and even then there are issues at the branch.

It is up to the lawyer now. It was miss handled over and over again... it was one email that went in my junk box, not numerous calls. I have also been to the shop numerous times trying to resolve any issues. First time was it is being “processed”, next time we are moving and the inventory is locked down by the atf then COVID locked everything down and the last time I was in was “ here is my personal number I have the managers number you don’t know who you’re talking to I’ll get an answer.” I wish I could sit at his door waiting for him to open the few days a week he is open but it does not work for me.

I'm not talking specifically about you, no idea who you are, or what shop you're talking about.

Just asking because if your stamp check was sent that's how they (NFA branch) track it, if they can't find it, either something is seriously wrong on their end or you or dealer didn't send a check that's all.

Yeah it seems the Internet has spoken and he has agreed to send them to another shop for the transfer. We will see.

I think I've got a pretty good idea of who you're talking about.

Can you clue the rest of us in, so we don't waste our time with a bad local vendor?

I’m waiting to see how it’s handled from here. I can say that I’ve had lots of out reach that it is not just me. I will say I have requested that they are sent to a shop in Eden prairie.

They way it started for me is I bought three cans and was supposed to get two “sale cans” from silencerco.(the 2 extras never happened or I was never notified,I’m not the only one here also) when my dealer received them he sent an email that did not say what it was about(3rd party esign) and I thought is was junk. At the year point I was able to get to his shop and he said he sent the paperwork in incomplete because he had not heard from me. He said it will be sent back incomplete but the turn around would be fast this way. I paid him cash to reimburse him for the stamps he said I filed for in good faith. The story goes on and I am saving the rest if he does not complete his end of the deal. At this point I’d be happy with a refund or the cans. If it gets ugly I bet he wished he never screwed with me for $2000 dollars. I will dedicate lots of time and energy to make sure he loses out on more then $2000.

Wait, I need to decipher this block of text...

Let me ask a couple of questions: Did you get any emails from the vendor telling you when the form 3 had cleared to your dealer, and/or any shipping/tracking info from them to your dealer? I've yet to buy a can and not have at least one if not both of those happen.

Even if none of those things happened...you still waited a full calendar year before bothering to see your FFL to ask them about it? You also, knowing you have some NFA items coming in, didn't bother to actually check all of your email flagged as spam or not, to see if it was relevant? You didn't call your FFL sooner, didn't make the drive over...you just sat and waited a year?

What does "I paid him cash to reimburse him for the stamps he said I filed for" ????? That sentence makes no sense. Did you write out $200 checks to the ATF for the 3 cans? Or are you saying HE was the one who fronted the $200 transfer tax stamps...in which case I would say the dude was doing you a solid?

Either there's a ton of info missing here, or it's looking like you're the one who caused this mess...from what you've said, it looks like:

Dealer shipped cans to your FFL
your FFL emailed you; you thought it was spam and deleted it
you never show up at your FFL, even though I'm pretty sure the dealer also notified you when the form 3 cleared and when the item(s) were shipped to your ffl...
your FFL decided to submit incomplete form 4s, with $200/ea attached to them, just to get the forms in the pile so when they get rejected, you've just got to fill out the info and a couple weeks later they get approved
....a year goes by....
you finally show up, and are now angry about it?

Is that about right?

No there was no form 3 from a separate vendor. I purchased them from Him. I have held off blasting him here because some of this shit show is on me. But I’m the novice gun guy and he is the nfa dealer I bought the cans from and I have done what I can when I can.

With the delayed response it was well documented that silencerco was having fulfillment issues. I assumed it was on their end.

As for the email it was send from a esign app with nothing noting the shops name or what what it wanted me sign for. Just his personal name and some mesh of numbers and letters. I was able to retrieve the email and would still say it does not look like and email you would open let alone sign out of the blue.

There was never a phone call or email from his shop. I reached out multiple times. Phone calls, emails, Facebook messages and text messages.


Both of my other transactions went as they should have. What corse of action do I have. The only thing I can do is request them sent to another dealer to get the process started over. He said he was going to file a form 3 and send them on. Which is all I’m asking for at this point.

Ok, but I'm still not tracking something...

When you say you bought from him - you went to the store, said "I'll take those cans on the shelf there", and that was it? Or you ordered from a web shop online? Or...?

Basically I'm having a hard time understanding how you could buy something and not know you had to bring fingerprint cards, photographs, and fill out/sign forms in duplicate And the esign thing didn't raise any red flags of "Hey, this might be important, maybe I should read it and figure out if this is legit or not"?

If the dealer did what he said, and filed the form 4s with missing info and was waiting on you to bring the print cards/photographs and then fill out the form 4s with the correct info...why are you having them form 3ed over to Arnzen (or wherever) and then starting over from scratch? If you bring your FFL the info he needs and he updates the missing info in the kicked back form 4s...you're already at the head of the line at that point. Kicking it all over to wherever in Eden Prairie just restarts the timer from scratch; you'll be waiting another year.

I get that you're (clearly) new at the NFA thing, but man...a lot of this could be (and might still be able to be) avoided just by giving your FFL the info he needs/the ATF the info they need to proceed with the transfer?

If that is what he needs can’t he ask me for it. He has my trust and prints on file or that’s what he lead me to believe. If he will not respond to text phone calls emails or messages how can I put any faith in him?

I've got no facts on this current thread but I had some delays with Accutac when they were moving.  That said, things went smooth once their new FFL paperwork came in, just wish I would have known it'd be a several month delay before my stuff started getting processed.

I've seen comments on responses being hit and miss.  I've had some delayed responses but always ended up getting something.

That said, I've always gotten my stuff, been treated reasonable, and he's done a great job on all my engravings.

Would I avoid them? Not necessarily, but I'm a little more cautious in asking all the questions now.

Did you pay for the stamp or write a check to the ATF? That's how you track, since the ATF had no info I'm assuming you didn't even pay for your stamp.
The dealer sent you something to esign and I guess you ignored it. How many times did you ignore that? I use doccusign for work and it sends reminders. For like a year.

I'm curious just how much you think a dealer is responsible to chase people down who aren't playing ball. If I were an SOT, if you don't have your stuff to me in a month or two tops I'm refunding your CC charge minus restocking fee, cancelled CC charges aren't free and neither is their time. And I'm not wasting my time trying to contact you. You're done.

Gun shops are a race to the bottom (unless there's a global pandemic, supply chain issues and a democratic president, House and Senate, or mass shootings) and there's barely any profit on new guns, cans are a little better but dealing with people is a nightmare for them. Even if an SOT does everything right, customers get mad because the wait is too long at the NFA branch or your trust has issues that they have to chase you down for. Trusts suck and are longer to approve so good luck. They are also mostly pointless since 41f.