How to sell a gun not in person?

[wesman5060]

Sorry if this isnt the right thread to post this. I have a gun that im thinking of posting on a few "national" gun forums for sale but ive never actually sold a gun not in person. Ive always thought it was a little too scary to do so but i think i need to give it a try in this case. Im wondering whats the best and safest way to do this? I will be asking a good chunk of change for it (at least a lot of money to me) so i figure paypal F&F isnt exactly safe in this case. Whats the safest form of payment i should insist on? Might be a dumb question but do i wait for payment and wait for, in this scenario, the check to clear? How exactly does one go about shipping a gun? Is there anything else i should ask for or insist on? Also, i will be entertaining trades on it. If i was to trade it, do we like somehow simultaneously ship it or whats the usual way of doing that? I might get asked this by yall but no i dont have a C&R. Im probably forgetting other questions i should be asking haha. Id greatly appreciate any and all help yall can give me. Thanks yall!!!

 

[gh1950]

There are two ways to sell a gun not in person (FTF).

First is to ship it to an FFL in the state where the buyer resides. The method of shipping will depend on whether it's a long gun or a short gun. Once you reach a deal with the seller, you need to include the cost of shipping in the total. The buyer needs to determine if the FFL (his choice) will accept shipments from non-FFL. Many will not, but that's the buyer's problem.

Which leads to the second method, which is to deliver the gun to a local (to you) FFL, and pay him a fee for transferring the gun to the seller's FFL. It may be cheaper to do this any way because the FFL can ship with methods and at rates not available to you.

As to the method of payment, it's up to you and how knowledgeable you are about how the transactions work.

If you accept a check, you first verify with the bank it is written on that it is an open active account. Then you deposit it and wait 10 BUSINESS days for it to clear. If you have a good relationship with your local bank, they can find out if there are enough funds in the account to pay the check. You don't ship until those 10 days have gone by. This is generally understood between the parties, but you should state it in any ad.

USPS MO are safe because they are hard to counterfeit and you can take them to the PO to cash them.

Personally I would not accept any money order other than a USPS.

Wire transfers are very safe but expensive for relatively small transactions.

PayPal is mostly safe, but it can be gamed by savy buyers.

Then there are other forms of electronic transfer, each of which carries some risk.

As long as you are prudent, pay attention, and don't get greedy and rush things. you will not get taken advantage on the payment.

You might want to read over some ads on Gunbroker to see how those folks handle such sales.


On trades, usually there is a 3 day inspection period. A lot of sellers on GB allow this, and most purveyors of high dollar guns do too. HOWEVER, on a trade your costs are going to go up exponentially. Two, maybe 4 FFLs, double shipping, all paid out of the same cash pot.

Straight up shipping. without taking the FFL issues in hand, you can ship a long gun through the USPS. Registered mail is the safest way to ship but expensive. A short gun has to shipped through one of the commercial services and that can be expensive. An FFL can use less expensive means of shipping which why if may be prudent to use a local FFL even though you don't HAVE to.

 

[BIKER13]

USPS has never had enough money to cash a money order so I end up depositing in my account.

 

[BIGLEW]

I sold a pistol to someone in AZ. I took it to my local FFL and he shipped it to the AZ FFL. Pretty simple process.

 

[gh1950]

USPS has never had enough money to cash a money order so I end up depositing in my account.

Well, you can always tell big money.

You can call ahead,

The primary advantage of cashing a MO at the PO is that if the PO cashes it and it is counterfeit or there is some other irregularity with it, it will not come back to you, unlike a check.

That said, I've never had a USPS MO come back, and it's my preferred method of payment.