With all the online scams would it make sense for FFLs to act as escrow/middlemen for non firearms sales?

[Ryoungstl]

Apologies if I got this in the wrong forum I'll happily take it down. At this point, I feel the only safe deal is face to face. I haven't asked my favorite FFL, but I'd happily pay them a percentage of the sale or even a fixed fee to handle the sale. Do you know any FFL's that do that? Seller doesn't get money til the item is opened, inspected and verified. The buyer pays for the item. The FFL sends the payment or handles shipping less an up front fee, but only after receiving the cash. If the buyer refuses the item the seller pays shipping both ways. Am I ignorant and it actually can work this way?

 

[Nine Banger]

No one will agree to those terms.

Scammers, definitely not.

Legit sellers will sell to someone else.

Most people don't have time for face to face sales unless you make time because you have to do it that way due to regulations and paperwork like real estate, vehicles, guns, or stuff that can't be shipped that's perishable, delicate or heavy.

 

[NRA4LIFE]

No FFL will agree to that. I personally know several.

 

[mjh]

FFL's are not money brokker's and deal fixers. No need to ask them to take that on.

 

[TXHunt]

I'm an FFL and no way I got time for that.

 

[Chris in TN]

Several years back, I sold a gun to a guy in another state. He contacted a local FFL that agreed to physically examine the firearm, verify that it was the gun I'd posted pictures of, with no obvious defects or hidden scratches, and then pass payment to me and take the gun to ship to the other guy's local FFL. He charged a fee to do this, of course. It worked fine. I'd do it again. You just have to understand that there'll be a cost to it, and you have to figure out if it's worth it.

 

[Q_Sertorius]

What’s wrong with a video call to the person?

 

[Flat Range]

Apologies if I got this in the wrong forum I'll happily take it down. At this point, I feel the only safe deal is face to face. I haven't asked my favorite FFL, but I'd happily pay them a percentage of the sale or even a fixed fee to handle the sale. Do you know any FFL's that do that? Seller doesn't get money til the item is opened, inspected and verified. The buyer pays for the item. The FFL sends the payment or handles shipping less an up front fee, but only after receiving the cash. If the buyer refuses the item the seller pays shipping both ways. Am I ignorant and it actually can work this way?

Probably not FFL worthy, but if a man or woman had some downtime, and the terms were changed slightly to be more enticing, a person could side hustle this I'm sure. Unsure the market for it though for scalability long-term.

You'd be a "Certified Buyer"? Lol

 

[homebru.trout]

For now video call is fine...but I have conducted at least two video interviews for roles in my organization where I was interviewing AI rather than an actual human. There was a post on LinkedIn awhile back about a company that caught a very convincing AI video bot by asking him to hold up three fingers across his face and the model driving that particular AI agent glitched in response to the non-standard request. No telling how long we have until the video call goes the way of the dodo.

It is relatively easy to provide software that facilitates digital escrow...it's actually what I do for a living. And it's also effectively what Paypal G&S or Venmo Transactions are doing. At the end of the day, the reason escrow works is because of all the KYC/KYB processes that a bank does when establishing a relationship. When you walk into a bank or log on to SoFi, Axos, etc and provide a drivers license, SSN, etc there's a whole bunch of stuff that goes on behind the scenes to verify you are who you say you are. Wouldn't need an FFL to do it...just the digital system for people to register for an account and a partner bank to hold the funds. The money movement is the easy bit...getting a critical mass of people willing to use the tools available to them seems to be the challenge. Building another system to do what Paypal already does but for firearm and firearm-adjacent transactions is going to suffer from the same human nature that the paypal system already suffers from...folks are unwilling to pay the extra 3% in a lot of cases and they lack an understanding of tax law and effective record keeping on the back end.