I was going through.... completed auctions and found a weapon that lm interested in , I contacted him and he still has it . So I guess > if we were to do something we have to work our way through GunBroker to make it happen..... correct..... or can I just say let's do something ... I don't know we would need to work out some deal of sorts ...? Where's a fellow go...

I think G/broker says that’s a no-no. You may be able to do the transaction but you’ll lose any protection through G/broker and if GB figures it out you’ll probably be cut out of the pattern.

Realistically, a private transaction could be done over the phone and nobody would ever know. I suspect this is done very often. I kind of think GB has earned a commission, so I don’t do this. Just ask the seller to relist it at a certain date/time with your agreed upon price as the BUY NOW price, and buy it at that time. It will cost more as the GB fee will be charged to the seller and, most likely, sales tax added to you. IMO, the few extra bucks it costs will be offset by a clear conscience.

Contact the seller and make your deal. If the auction ended without a sale or relisting, Gunbroker would be out of it. Even in an active auction, if there is no bid the auction can be ended by the seller and the item sold elsewhere.

GB is just a broker, a venue for connecting sellers with potential buyers. If the item is no longer being actively listed I can't see how GB has done anything to earn a commission. GB won't help a buyer when a seller misrepresents an item, so my conscience would be clear as long as the item doesn't have an active listing. The seller benefits because he doesn't have to pay a commission. The buyer benefits because he might get a lower price and he won't be paying state sales tax.

Actually Gunbroker is required to collect sales tax in most states now.

I agree..

GB auction ended without sale. End of the sellers contract with GB. Seller can do as he wishes with his property after that.

^^^This^^^.....................I've sold a couple of guns that way. Buyer contacted me after the auction closed, and we made a deal. He sent me the FFL he was using, and I shipped to the FFL. Same process as on GB, but you're bypassing them. No big deal.

.it was previously said
. If the item is no longer being actively listed I can't see how GB has done anything to earn a commission

not sure I agree



well the only reason that the OP knew about the gun is GB
So yes they really did part of the sale

I had a young seller I bought a gun from a while ago and I offered to buy it direst and he said no they put us together they did their part

After that I thought the young man was correct and have not went around GB

but with the addition of sales tax it makes it more tempting
that ticks me off
Hank

Speaks volumes about your integrity. Without the Gunbroker connection, there would be no knowledge of the gun for sale. Cutting Gunbroker out of the deal is not honest, but that doesn’t matter much anymore.

You are bums.

Yes, but if the buyer and the seller don't use GB as their broker, if they coordinate the transaction directly, the seller probably doesn't collect sales tax. I bought a used gun that was on the Williams Gun Sight site earlier this week and they didn't collect sales tax.

There are listing fees that GB gets when an item is placed on auction. Seller pays those fees regardless if item sells or not. GB gets paid. GB is not getting shorted if item does not sell, and seller makes a deal elsewhere.

From GB:
How do I pay for an Ad?
Updated 2 months ago
When you have finished creating your Ad, you will be taken to the Cart. From here you can choose to pay for the Ad, or to add more Ads to your Cart. The GunBroker.com Self-Service Advertising Platform supports payment by credit card through our secure payment provider, and all major credit card providers are supported.

Evidently you either can't comprehend what was written, or else you work for Gunbroker. Go back and read what I wrote......"Buyer contacted me AFTER the auction closed." What was I supposed to do?...........tell them that I was sorry, that I couldn't sell the gun to them because it would be shorting GB of their commission?

It seems that you have not sold anything on GB. Their listing fee is very small and they collect the bulk of their fee after the sale is complete. The amount is determined as a percentage of the final selling price at the close of the auction.

The only up front costs with GB are if you choose to add "Options" of additional advertising and tracking. If you do NOT choose any of these, and the item does NOT sell....there is no charge on the back end or for relisting. As far as the tax, GB is a large site and one that is easily targeted for collecting tax....just like Ebay. Smaller sites and individual FFL's seem to be under the radar for now.

WMR, I have bought and sold on GB.

If you sell on GB and feel that GB needs more $$ after you pay the list fee, and your item does not sell, feel free to send GB more of your money.

If the item never sells, then of course I'd feel no additional obligation. If GB's search function is used to complete a sale by finding the item and connecting buyer and seller, then I would. Just me. YMMV, of course. We all draw our own lines.

GunBroker makes plenty money, if sale is over, the deal is off.

I had a handgun listed on GB. An interested buyer initiated a conversation with me BEFORE the listing expired, but we never consummated a deal while the listing was active. Afterwards he decided to make the purchase, so I made plans to re-list with our agreed upon sale price, and communicated the exact time I would make the listing active. He swooped in immediately and made the requisite offer.

I got a good price, the buyer got the gun he desired and GB got a commission. Everyone is happy and isn’t that the desired end?

The important point, I believe, is that the buyer was made aware of the guns availability THROUGH GB. So why shouldn’t a seller make sure that they got their commission? Seems only right to me.

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.

g