Anyone Sell on GB? What Form of Payment do you Take?

wvsig

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Does anyone here sell on Gunbroker and if so what form of payment do you take. Seems like a lot of people who are not FFLs or in the business of buying and selling guns take USPS MO, certified checks and Paypayl on the DL.

It seem like taking PP on the DL is a putting the seller at risk. If there is a payment dispute PP is going to want to know what was sold etc... Seems like it could leave someone holding the bag. Setting up a merchant style account for a single transaction or two. I generally list stuff on forums because it is easier to gauge the legitimacy of the purchaser and PP in those instances is less of a risk. GB has recently moved to the realm of insanity similar to Armslist. Thoughts? What do other people use?
 
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I would not do Paypal for firearms period. Especially not the fee saving friends and family.

I see people taking Zelle for payment....I have not read their T&Cs but would be interested to know more.

In my opinion setting up a merchant account is a lot more complicated than it is worth for 2 transactions. I would look into the monthly fees and such. However... having the ability to take a credit card (for a fee) definitely leads to higher bidding because people love whipping the plastic out.

Money orders and certified checks are the safest from the seller side, but do make the buyer work a little harder. They also have to have full funds at the time they get the checks.
 
I would not do Paypal for firearms period. Especially not the fee saving friends and family.

I see people taking Zelle for payment....I have not read their T&Cs but would be interested to know more.

In my opinion setting up a merchant account is a lot more complicated than it is worth for 2 transactions. I would look into the monthly fees and such. However... having the ability to take a credit card (for a fee) definitely leads to higher bidding because people love whipping the plastic out.

Money orders and certified checks are the safest from the seller side, but do make the buyer work a little harder. They also have to have full funds at the time they get the checks.

Zelle is no firearms or ammo etc... similar to PP.
 
Zelle is no firearms or ammo etc... similar to PP.

I figured that would be the case.

There are not too many merchant organizations that do CC processing for firearms. GB has teamed up with a few and I know there are a few others but its not as easy as selling literally anything else.
 
I haven't sold on GB (yet), but have done FB Pay and Venmo for private transactions. Cashapp may be another option. I use the Quickbooks prcessor for business purposes.
 
USPS money order only.
 
When I was working in SC, it wasn't convenient for me to get to the post office. Several times I would ask the seller if they would take a personal check and ship once they were satisfied that the check was good. I was never turned down. Yes, it takes a little longer to get your treasure in your hand but I found it easier.
 
Thanks for the thoughts. In general as a buyer I prefer to use a credit card when there is no fee involved. I get cash back and I am also protected as the buyer. I also us USPS MO but as a buyer you are still going to be in the wind if they don't send your item. I know people throw around the concept of mail fraud but honestly the USPS isn't going to do much for you if you get scammed. As a seller the big advantage of USPS MO as I see it is that you can take it to any post office and get cash for it before shipping anything.

@Geezer I have also used personal checks and instructed the seller to hold the item until they are satisfied the check has cleared. Most of the time that has been transactions on forums like this one.

I generally try to avoid GB as a seller but I have some items I think will fetch a better price there than here or other forums I belong to. Again thanks for everyones thoughts.
 
Some USPS locations may not have much cash on had early in the day to cash USPS MO's.

Tom
 
Certified Check preferred or USPS Money Order. My local PO has always said they don't have enough money on hand to cash a money order. Probably just don't want to do so.
 
How would zelle know?
They wouldn’t but if something goes wrong and buyer files a dispute you have zero protections because you violated their terms of service.
 
Thanks for the thoughts. In general as a buyer I prefer to use a credit card when there is no fee involved. I get cash back and I am also protected as the buyer. I also us USPS MO but as a buyer you are still going to be in the wind if they don't send your item. I know people throw around the concept of mail fraud but honestly the USPS isn't going to do much for you if you get scammed. As a seller the big advantage of USPS MO as I see it is that you can take it to any post office and get cash for it before shipping anything.

@Geezer I have also used personal checks and instructed the seller to hold the item until they are satisfied the check has cleared. Most of the time that has been transactions on forums like this one.

I generally try to avoid GB as a seller but I have some items I think will fetch a better price there than here or other forums I belong to. Again thanks for everyones thoughts.
You are correct about the Post Office not doing anything. I got scammed from a seller on another Forum. Long story, but I sent a USPS Money order and sent it Signature Required. The clerk at the Post Office assured me it was the safest way to send funds. Once I got scammed, I reported the fraud online as was directed. No response for 60 days. Reported it again, no response. Called several numbers and finally got connected with the fraud department. I think the office I was talking to was in Atlanta, but might as well been talking to Mars. Talked to several different people. 1st said she had no way to check the status of my claim. Passed me to a supervisor supposedly. She was dumber than the first. Finally got a lady that knew her stuff, but basically told me not to expect any communication for at least 6 months (its been over a year now) that they were that far behind. She had asked me up front how much my claim involved and later I realized by everything she said, that small claims are pretty much a waste of time. Also filed a theft claim with the local police where the money order was shipped but that was a wasted phone call as well.
 
You are correct about the Post Office not doing anything. I got scammed from a seller on another Forum. Long story, but I sent a USPS Money order and sent it Signature Required. The clerk at the Post Office assured me it was the safest way to send funds. Once I got scammed, I reported the fraud online as was directed. No response for 60 days. Reported it again, no response. Called several numbers and finally got connected with the fraud department. I think the office I was talking to was in Atlanta, but might as well been talking to Mars. Talked to several different people. 1st said she had no way to check the status of my claim. Passed me to a supervisor supposedly. She was dumber than the first. Finally got a lady that knew her stuff, but basically told me not to expect any communication for at least 6 months (its been over a year now) that they were that far behind. She had asked me up front how much my claim involved and later I realized by everything she said, that small claims are pretty much a waste of time. Also filed a theft claim with the local police where the money order was shipped but that was a wasted phone call as well.
USPS MO = cash. No protection from thieves.
 
Money orders have no protection to them, and the postal inspections mail fraud wont get involved really. They only care about large nationwide fraud size cases, BATFE won't do anything about it even though it might involve a weapon they consider it criminal theft and to be left to local police department and USPS. Really you have no recourse unless the local police department is willing to get involved. I've had one bad experience where luckily local PD was willing to get involved, most wont from everything I've seen posted by people who have been scammed.

Paypal is notorious for freezing accounts that violate their TOS (they are highly anti-2a and will freeze an account for selling guns/accessories), once an account is frozen it's months before they will release funds.

If you're looking to start selling on gunbroker you need to get a 2a friendly credit card processor, and there are not a lot of them. Hell, most banks TOS deny opening business accounts to FFL's but the local branches open them anyway. Soar is supposed to be decent, I was wanting to use square, but they've changed their TOS to where they wont process for FFLs anymore.

There have been a couple paypal for guns type companies try to startup and get a good market, but so far none of them have caught on.
 
Postal money orders works best for me. My credit union accepts them on deposit and if things go sour you have a federal postal inspector to go after the criminals.
 
Last sale I made on gunbroker was a Pre-ban 56S, winner sent me a money order from some bank in New England. When I deposited it I asked how long to clear, reply was it will clear tomorrow.
 
That made me think of something. We all know that we've been getting a lot of Armslist sellers recently.

Do y'all think we're gonna get Armslist buyers, ie scammers?
 

Somebody with banking knowledge might be able to look this over. $99 a month fee. It might be onerous, but if an LLC was formed for the purpose of receiving payments and 10 folks were members it would cost each on $9.90 per month. It would require a lot of transactions to make sense, and somebody would have to administer the receipts and disbursements. But money could be received and sent out as ACHs with minimal cost.
 
I sold a few rifles on Gun Broker, I USPS accepted money orders and checks. My experience was very favorable as a seller.
 
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