Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Gun broker ?...item did not sell

After a friend of mine was scammed on Gun Broker. Never could reach anyone at GB. They just didn’t seem to care.
I’ve lost my concern on if they receive their commissions are not.
Sounds like the same issue with a realtor. If bought or sold during time of contract they receive their money. Once contract ends no money. Hasbeen

I agree with hanco, "if the sale is over, the deal is off".
A few years back I watched a handgun on GB that a local dealer had listed. It didn't sell so when the sale expired I contacted him and asked about doing a trade. He agreed to meet so I drove to his shop, about an hour away, and we made a deal. Everybody got what they wanted. GB got paid for the original listing ( I don't know how many times he advertised it), the dealer got my trade-in plus money and I got the item I wanted.
I think your obligation to GB ends when the sale does.

I can comprehend how you justify using Gunbroker and cut them out of the sale. The buyer can’t contact you after the auction ends unless you have already had contact or you still have live auctions on Gunbroker that they can contact you through. Once the auction ends, there is no way to contact each other. Gunbroker doesn’t charge any listing fees to place an auction on their site unless you add extras to your listing, so they aren’t getting paid until you sell your gun.

Keep justifying dishonest behavior with your poor character, but it remains dishonest.

GunBroker is dam near a scam operation themselves. I get the ethics of the question posed, but if there was ever a company that deserved to be screwed that way, it's GunBroker.

A person can usually rationalize about any position necessary to end up with the money in their pocket.

This is how a contract works.

Party A agrees to do x,y,z

Party B- I agree to pay you x if you do

There is no, "Oh, and if it sells outside the contract period you have to come back and pay me a commission"

I'm sure that some of the so called "ethical" posters on here are also the ones that believe you should only buy a firearm at the local "meemaw and peepaw" run gun shop, and pay them more than a gun is worth, rather than shop around for the best price, even if it means buying from Walmart. So, the question is whether or not it's ethical to sell a gun that was posted for sale on GB after the GB auction has expired.

Okay, I'm selling a rifle on GB, and I get an email from a person telling me that if I don't get my asking price, they would be interested in talking to me after the auction ends. They give me their contact information, and when my rifle doesn't sell, and the auction is over and done with, just where does some idiot think that it's unethical if I sell my rifle to the person who contacted me. I fail to see any unethical practice over this at all.

I believe the posters on here who are saying it's unethical, are the same ones who also believe that a Campfire member should sell a gun to a member of this site, and do so for a lot less than they would get by selling it on GB. Yet, suddenly, they are taking up for GB. Doesn't make sense to me.

If the GB seller uses his/her actual name or a business name it is pretty easy to find their contact information after their auction ends.

To me it is the same as if you're selling a home and your contract with the listing agent ends without a sale. Until you list the property again, you don't owe any comission. If someone saw the property when it was listed, but didn't initiate contact before the contract ended, the seller and buyer can work out a FISBO transaction without any guilt about having cheated the agent out of his/her comission.

I think that using PP F&F to pay for something that you've purchased from someone who is neither friend, nor family, is wrong because PP is acting as the interface between the seller and buyer.

I have a hard time feeling any sympathy for GB, as they do nothing to control dishonest sellers. Even when a GB seller has a return policy, GB doesn't require them to honor that policy and most of the time the buyer gets screwed. GB is nothing more than a digit evolution of the old GUN LIST and SHOTGUN NEWS papers, except they charge the seller when the ad is placed and colect a comission based on the sale price of the item.

There is no listing charge on Gunbroker. You may pay additional fees for highlighting or other attention notices to your ad, but they don't charge a fee to list. They charge you commission on the sale and now it includes sales tax. That is their policy, you know that going into the agreement. if You don't like their policy, don't use them.

They are not perfect, but using their faults to justify your dishonesty, makes you worse.

To you and every other cheat, it seems the same, but it isn't. The contact you made due to the listing on Gunbroker, remains the same. If you make your initial contact through Gunbroker, you have to realize it was due to their site, not your backdoor means.

Justifying still seems to be the rule with cheaters and liars. You can't dodge that bullet with your feeble excuses.

You should put me on ignore if you think that I'm a cheater or a liar. I'm going to put you on ignore as soon as I'm done with this post.

Years ago, I put in my max bid on a rifle on GB. At some point another bidder started bidding at something the minimum increments until their bid topped mine. In the end that bidder won.
A couple of days later, I think it was by e-mail, the seller contacted me and said that the auction winner changed his mind and didn’t want the rifle. The seller said that if I still wanted the rifle he would list it at my last bid. Warning lights went off in my head and my first thought was that the seller was using a “shill” to bid the price up but the “shill” had gone a bit too high. I decided I didn’t want it that bad.

That’s the only questionable transaction I’ve had with GB.

Well the item never got any bids , and I found it looking for what different items are selling for ...so if I pass on .. the wife will have a paper in the safe stating ...what I got gun for and the value today...I do this every 5 to 10 years ...and a list of the Never sell firearms and the family story as to why ! .......BTW..we made a deal this morning, on our own....

It's pretty cool that the guy who owns GunBroker posts on the Fire

I have to agree with you on this. This is no different than listings I’ve seen on GB in the past that said “auction can end at anytime if local sale occurs” or something to this nature. I’ve seen this more than once in years past when it was a dealer selling guns from their shop. Now if you try to get seller to end early and not pay the fees, that’s a different story.

How do you get around the roadblocks put up by GunBroker to prevent you from acquiring another's contact info?

Had some issues with GB several years back with some crooked assed sellers. Pretty much washed my hands of them then.

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