A recent debacle at the LGS has me going paper on my next silencer. One of their customers was overdue on his efile form4; he logged in to his account to find that it had been approved months ago, but the approved/stamped form had not been uploaded. The dealer can't see it either, so he's stuck. He's got an approved item, but can't take possession of it because the ATF can't/won't produce the approved form. Both the customer and the dealer have made numerous fruitless calls and eforms contact portal efforts. Dealer has had this happen with paper more than a couple times before, but it was never a problem; call ATF, and they send it, or a certified copy, if it was lost.

That sucks.

Thanks for the head's up.

I'm fixin to fire off about 3 eF1s. Nice thing is, you already possess the receiver with an F1 SBR. Still sucks not to have the stamp to show the gestapo if you ever find the misfortune to need to.

EForm4s only ever show under a dealer, approved or not. They never show on the individual’s page. All an individual gets is the email from the ATF with their copy. But if approved, it should show up in the dealer’s ATF eForm page. Did it show up as on their page while it was pending?

How did the person or the dealer know it was approved? Did they call?

First I’ve ever heard of this happening. Still not enough to make me go back to paper.

Correct. The transferee cannot see it in their efile account; he did indeed call. Dealer sees it as approved but gets an error when they click to display and print the actual form. Same dealer also had another customer's form marked "approved", but the form uploaded was the one marked DRAFT, and lacked any stamp or approval signature; this took a month to get fixed. Considering these two ATF goofs at my arguably low-volume dealer, I am surprised there's not more reports like this. With efile at eight or nine months anyway, I am gonna try my luck with paper again.

And if the individual got their ATF email they have a copy of the approved version, that should be more than enough for the dealer to deliver the suppressor. it might be 8-9 months on efile, but its over 14 months and counting on paper, I'd take my chances.

...and although the mentioned eForms problems are frustrating, we know nothing of their scope, nor do we have any information that paper is any more reliable.

In the case of the "DRAFT" form, both the dealer and the individual got emails; neither had a stamped, signed form. The form marked "DRAFT" was all the dealer had access to, when accessing it through their account as well. The SN was marked "approved" in the dealer's account, but there were not sufficient documents to enable release of the silencer to the customer.

In the other case, no one got an email. The customer found out it was approved by calling. The dealer, upon checking in their account, saw that the SN was indeed marked as approved, but had no access to any supporting document of any kind, as an error message was given, every time they tried to view it.

As I said, it took a month to get the first case straightened out, and the other is still in the works. This shop is seeing eform4 turn-arounds in eight or nine months right now. I am considering going paper just out of curiosity. I am fortunate to have other silencers already, and reasonable access to pending cans as well, so I am willing to test it out

But what do you gain by filing a paper form? If it is approved without issues, it only means that one form went through. It's anecdotal at best, since we don't know what would have happened with an eForm submitted on the same item at the same time.

Obviously there's no harm for you, I just don't see how you get any useful information.

I see what you're saying. I don't guess I hope to attain any usable data. It just seems that eform problems are, right now, harder to fix than paper problems. Also, it would seem, based on this one dealer, that eform problems perhaps occur at a higher rate than paper. Also, as eform turn-arounds seem to continue to trend longer, there may be a chance that, by the time a paper form submitted now comes back, it could be quicker than eforms. That's very speculative though, as the timelines are historically complete crapshoots. My decision is more motivated by the potential pain-in-the-ass avoidance, than by quick approvals anyway. Aren't you a dealer, BR? Have you seen any errors?

I’ve had the “Draft” issue in the past. An email to the “Ask The Experts” link had the situation cleared up in about 4 hours.

That is good to hear. Maybe my dealer exaggerated the timeline, or didn't handle that as efficiently as they could have. I do know they say they've had very bad luck with the "ask the experts" function; especially in the more recent case of the completely missing form.

quote:

Originally posted by KSGM:
I see what you're saying. I don't guess I hope to attain any usable data. It just seems that eform problems are, right now, harder to fix than paper problems. Also, it would seem, based on this one dealer, that eform problems perhaps occur at a higher rate than paper. Also, as eform turn-arounds seem to continue to trend longer, there may be a chance that, by the time a paper form submitted now comes back, it could be quicker than eforms. That's very speculative though, as the timelines are historically complete crapshoots. My decision is more motivated by the potential pain-in-the-ass avoidance, than by quick approvals anyway. Aren't you a dealer, BR? Have you seen any errors?

I am a dealer. Pretty low volume. So far no issues with eForms.

The LGS cross-referenced their stack of submitted forms with their approval list in eforms, and found another case of an approved form that no one received an email about, and an error message is produced, when trying to view the approved form online. They estimate they move about 50 silencers a year; eforms has been up about a year; so that's a better than 4% error rate, if you include the "DRAFT" error.

SigM4, are you a dealer, or was that a form1?

No other input from anyone, dealer or individual, on this phenomenon? I find it unlikely that my dealer is the only one running into this, especially since they've seen more than two instances.

E-forms are fully electronic.
ATF will not speak to you nor respond to e-mails regarding e-form applications other than canned e-mail response, shown below.

Any errors, there is no option for correction, as there is with paper forms.
Tried to get advice from ATF ask the experts 9 months ago when I thought there may be a problem, but they would not help me nor did they advise to withdraw application and resubmit.
E-mail below was not provided 9 months ago.


Thank you for your Ask the Expert inquiry. We received your message and would like to offer some answers to some common questions.

Finalizing your application is very important to NFA. Please know that completing NFA status checks for applicants will significantly delay processing efforts. NFA appreciates your understanding so that our staff can focus on processing applications and not researching status checks. ATF receives hundreds of Ask the Expert Inquiries each day, your continued patience is greatly appreciated.

· eForms User Services - eForms registration, PIN, security question, or password questions, please call the ATF Service Desk at 1-888-283-6427.

· NFA Processing Times - Current processing times may be found at: Current Processing Times Please know that the times listed are average processing times. Some applications may take longer due to many factors.

· eForm 4 Certification Problems- The Transferee must certify their eForm 4 application information between the transferees eForm user account and the application you are submitting must match exactly on First Name, Last Name, eMail address, USERID, and PIN. If you believe all information matches, please provide screenshots of both the Transferee’s My Profile information from their USER account and the information that is listed on the Responsible Person train stop. Send the screenshots to eforms.request@atf.gov with subject heading “eForm 4 Certification Assistance”.

· Fingerprint Card Submission - An Applicant can submit their fingerprint cards two different ways.
· EFT (Electronic Fingerprint Transmission) File - During the application process, an applicant can upload a valid EFT file on the Responsible Person train-stop. EFT files are created with a live scan fingerprinting device and cannot be created by a PDF conversion or a scan of FD-258 fingerprint cards.

· FD-258 Fingerprint Card Submission - The applicant will receive a cover letter after submission that will indicate where they need to send the fingerprint cards. The cover letter and fingerprint cards must be sent together in one packet. If there are multiple Responsible Persons found on the application, they all must consolidate their cards into one packet and submit the bundle together along with the cover letter. The address to where the fingerprint cards and cover letter need to be sent is found on the cover letter itself.
· One set of fingerprint cards may be sent for multiple applications if all applicable cover letters are compiled into the same envelope with the FD-258 cards.

· Correcting Pending Applications- Once an eForm application is submitted, no changes can be made or accepted to the application. The application will need to be withdrawn and refunded so you can resubmit. See, “Withdrawing Forms” below:

· Submitted eForms 4- Submitted forms are only viewable from the USER profile who submitted the application. Transferees will not be able to view their pending application from their account.

· Disapprovals – If an eForm application is disapproved, then you are required to reapply. A new submission will need to be created, to include any supporting documents and fingerprint cards. Once an eForm application is finalized it cannot be altered.
· Any previously submitted fingerprint cards are not able to be transferred to the resubmitted form.
· Any tax payment will be refunded in the original form of payment, please allow up to 30 days for the credit to be applied to your account.

· Withdrawing Forms - To withdraw an application please submit a signed letter outlining your request to withdraw. Your letter should be dated and include all application information. A copy of the submitted form is also helpful to verify your application. These requests can be emailed to nfafax@atf.gov.

Once NFA applications are received by ATF they go through numerous steps before final action is taken. Please be assured that NFA Division personnel are working diligently to process applications and you will be notified with any status updates.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: kimber1911,

quote:

Originally posted by KSGM:
SigM4, are you a dealer, or was that a form1?

Form 1

So, my LGS has had twenty-one eform4s "completed", since they've been using eforms; three of them had issues. So, if we use those numbers for the math, as opposed to total forms submitted so far, we come out with a 14% eform4 "failure rate".

...but as a counterpoint, I've done about that many and had zero issues.

BigBR, have you investigated your list of approved forms, in your dealer eform account? That's how my LGS found the errors. They ended up checking all of theirs, but they found the errors early on, by sorting the approved forms by submission date, and then attempting to display the PDF approved form on each one; sure-enough, they found one that was approved, but popped an error message for the PDF, and neither the dealer or the individual had been notified. Still crickets from the "ask the experts" attempts, with something like nine messages sent now; phone calls have proven fruitless as well. I haven't navigated those websites myself, so my secondhand directions may not be accurate; I'd be interested if you find anything, if you haven't already checked.