I HAVE bought and sold on AuctionArms and have never had any problems.
Same for Gunbroker and GunsAmerica as a buyer.
Have never had any deal go sideways.
Either I am really lucky
or
there aren't that many ripoff minded folk out there.

I have always recieved more value for my dollar on those boards then going to a gunshow or a gunshop.

This is a site I use for reverse numbers and can do reverse address also among other things. Has served me pretty well maybe be handy to others as well.

http://www.reversephonedirectory.com/lookup2.htm

I have successfully bought one rifle through GA. I contacted the seller, talked to him on the phone, and asked for references. One of his references was Cooper Arms, the maker of the rifle I bought. They gave him a good reference, and the deal went smoothly. I have tried to contact three other sellers over the past couple of months trying to buy a particular model of rifle. Only one replied, and I called him. The guy would never email me a photo of the rifles he actually had in stock, so I gave up on him. Bottom line is "let the buyer beware".

Am I hearing some not too veiled threats from Chuck and Russ? Kinda sounds like you are trying to protect the exclusivity of your "turf" or you're hacked 'cause you're not getting a piece of the action.
FWIW, I don't think the terrorist would be interested in 99.9% of the guns that are offered for sale from private collections. Also, it would seem that the wife of a wife-beater would be the one interested in buying a weapon rather than the beater himself. In which case, I say "go for it. The bastard deserves to be shot."
Finally, if I sell 52 guns in a year AT A LOSS, am I exempt from getting a license??

Hi Everyone. I happened upon this post when I was cruising around the web. I own GunsAmerica.

I think that it's very important that buyers understand the risks of buying online. There is an actual army of foreigners right now trying to rip you off, steal your identity and even break into your house. It is absolutely crucial that whenever you attempt to make a private sale anywhere online, not just gunsamerica.com, you verify that the person has a traceable address in the USA. With pre-paid cell phones so easy to get and very little control on who can get a PO Box in any town, the mechanics are in their favor.

Compound that with the fact that in the US there is no effective system to deal with interstate theft. The FBI and Post Office don't touch cases under 100 thousand dollars. State police generally won't help unless there are in-state victims and local police almost always are way to stretched already to deal with your $350 loss. And ATF, with the exception of a few very creative agents (thank G0d for them) don't find a way to make it their business either. Generally, if you are the victim of a professional, you lose.

Sadly, the reverse phone number directory is your best resource to protect yourself. As others have noted here, it's not even close to up to date. That's why (not mentioned by the wonderful original poster of this thread) GA suggests to sellers that they can offer a yellow page listing, or even a direct lookup of their FFL on the ATF website, to which we provide a link. I'm sorry, but if you can't prove to someone that you exist in a physical place in the United States of America, you should not be trying to get people to send you money.

GunsAmerica has poor customer service by design. If you want someone to hold your hand use your local paper or the good old GunList to sell your guns. You won't sell them as fast and you'll pay three to five times as much, in advance, but hey, you'll get a live human on the phone to tell you how wonderful you are and how much they appreciate your business.

You get what you pay for. The GA selling fee is 1%, on the honor system, after the sale, only if we sell it. I have personally initiated police investigations and helped authorities put 5 people behind bars. In 7 years I have had four cases where genuine fraud was involved. In two of those we could not get a law enforcement officer involved in the case. The others were compensated by the thief. I have personally banned over 100 sellers in 7 years for misdescribing guns and lying about authenticity, which NO site besides subguns does other than GA. Before GunsAmerica came on the scene and took it over the gun industry had declined for 25 years. Now the growth is exploding and we just won an election.

Does that give you any idea of where exactly all the "not a big fan of GA" people can specifically go? The liberals are supposed to be the ones who forgot what happened yesterday when they open their mouths about what people should do tomorrow.

-Paul (Shlomo) Helinski
Owner, www.GunsAmerica.com

Talking to people is always a good idea when dealing on the internet. I think you can tell a lot about a person by their tone and demeanor when you speak to them. In the past GA was a great place but recently has been over run with scams. This is certainly not unique to GA but is a part of the internet. The real problem on GA is some of the big sellers that get preferential treatment due to the amount of $$ they spend there. There are a few who consistantly missrepresent their guns and a few who bait and switch. The owner of GA is personally responsible for some of this as he has been informed of factual specefic listings that were partially false or even for guns that did not exists on a bait and switch. As a Gold member and seller there in the past I personally notified him of a few instances. Those ads never came down and I never received any response. Haveing said that there are also some first class guys there that I still deal with today and I'd take their word sight unseen. I think the problem that many have with GA is the attitude of the owner when they wind up getting ripped off. Suggesting that a buyer would not be cheated of more than $350 is just plain arrogant. My average sale was more like 3k. There are a lot of sales there that dwarf mine so suggesting that people can only be cheated out of chicken scratch is just false. I would further add IMO that the owner is aware of the scams and IMO profits by them. This is the only logical reason I can conclude after being promised a feedback system for about two years that still does not exist. I don't really think most of us need any one to hold our hand but given a choice I prefer to do buisiness with honest, decent upstanding people and there are enough of those around. There are a few good tips to use if you plan on buying from GA. Always TRY to use the reverse look up. Try to buy from FFL dealers who take Credit cards. Talk to the seller on the phone. If they won't give there number pass on the item. Insist on more photos being sent other than what are posted on the web site. This will help assure that the seller actually has the item. If you can not use a credit card use US POSTAL money orders. If you get cheated it will then be investigated by the US postal inspectors. The owners suggestion that the Postal Inspectors will not get involved in anything unless its over 100k is just false. I personaly dealt with a Inspector a year or so ago about a item that was only $200. Not only did they investigate and nab the crook but they told me he had been previously investigated for similar small fraud. I can not emphasize the value of US Postal money orders or CC to protect yourself enough. Finally if you are going to buy from a dealer you don't know ASK others about them on a web site like this.
I have just one final thought and that is any one can sign up here or register under any name or as any user. It is indeed probable that the user registered as GA is not who he claims to be.