If he sold it as a firearm and it doesn’t go bang, blowing you off is just adding to your case by making it appear willful and not inadvertent as he claimed.

Is this guy on gunbroker or similar sites? Any hint from past sales outside of the other forum?

How was payment made?

A possible fraudulent scheme which might be investigated by local and/or federal authorities?

If he is on gunbroker I haven’t seen it. He has 161 positive reviews with no negatives in his 8 or so years on site. By comparison I have been a member there for 15 years, but only have 73 positives (and no negatives, we are not 100%). I paid him using postal money orders

This morning he posted that he had sent me a message but I never received it. I don’t know why he sent a board IM and not a text or email. Who knows. I texted him after seeing his post and asked him to text me, and I also sent him an email and CC’d the moderator handling our dispute on the emails so the board can see all our comms. He did respond just a little while ago via text and to the email I sent that he would send more later

I posted on the thread, sincerely, that I would try and work with him on how he pays me back. Obviously I won’t ship the gun until I receive payment in full, but if he needs to send me half now and half after he is paid I will allow that. Again, I don’t think he was trying to deceive me about the manufacturer. If he wanted to do that only an idiot would then suggest I call them for warranty repair.

Even unintentionally, though, he did sell me something that wasn’t what he claimed it was, and I thought I was buying.

My biggest issue is his behavior after I discovered the issue and told him I wanted to return the gun to him. He basically told me “oh well, too damn bad” and was completely fine with letting me take the fall for it.

I will let him send me $2700. And I will return the gun, drums and belts in the same or better condition. I will even pay to mail them back and insure them. Just because he lacks grace in this matter doesn’t mean I should.

quote:

Originally posted by az4783054:
Is this guy on gunbroker or similar sites? Any hint from past sales outside of the other forum?

How was payment made?

A possible fraudulent scheme which might be investigated by local and/or federal authorities?

You might be able to get the US Postal Inspectors involved since USPS money orders were sent through the USPS.

I came across the thread on the other site before I saw this one. Now that I put 2 and 2 together and realize this is the same issue. I would say that his responses are not in a tone you would expect. To me it seems he is not happy he has to make good on this and who would be. But if it were me, I would be terribly embarrassed that it had happened at all and would not be taking that tone. You are being more than generous on repayment terms.
However, that said, his standing there has been good - I would agree that he did not do this on purpose... but it happened.
Good luck!

As a lawyer you're probably aware that if you start accepting payments and he stops making payments, your options may become limited except in the courts. It's then a civil matter, maybe precluding any opportunity to pursue criminal charges.

USPS Inspectors may ask you if you just want your money back or you want to prosecute. If it were me in your situation, I'd want to prosecute the guy. Their approach with him will be completely different and may encourage him to rethink his attitude.

I had never intended it to be a criminal matter. If I thought he had intentionally deceived me that would be a different issue, but the reality is for something like this most prosecutors and police departments don’t think the juice is worth the squeeze. From the start this was a civil a matter for me

Dzozer I agree with you. He is being a dick. By going comms silent once I learned the gun wasn’t a DSArms gun he was being an ass too. He was happy to write me back when it was a troubleshooting matter and I was just trying to get the gun to function.

After I called DSA and the problem was discovered he completely stopped returning my texts. When he finally did reply it was via a board IM late at night where he basically told me “too damn bad”. When I made this thread I had not received that IM yet. When I did giving him a chance to think it over was done.

Even now, when the ruling has been made in my favor, he claims to have sent me an IM that I have mysteriously never received when he could have called, emailed or texted me.if I wanted to press it I could ask for a screen shot from his sent messages folder showing the message, but to what end? I would like to avoid litigation. Being antagonistic gets me nowhere at this point.

I do agree he’s basically throwing an internet tantrum with his tone. I am trying the kill them with kindness approach for now. If I have to get nasty, then I will. In a past life I was a litigator for a boutique law firm that only worked for large corporate clients. My smallest client was Home Depot. If I need to dust off those skills they are still there.

We will see what he says tonight, and how he says it. As I said above and in my last reply to that thread, I sent him an email with the board moderator CC’d so all he has to do is reply to me.

FWIW, I called DSArms back today and recorded my conversation as they looked up the serial number and went over that it left there as a receiver not a gun. FWIW the receiver left them in April 2011 and went to a gun store in Minnesota.

Guy ever get back with you?