But when every dealer in say ****,GA are charging $75 or 20% for an FFL or everyone is charging tax ... it raises eyebrows (at least mine and a few others).
I can't speak to the market in a town who's name you choose to omit. But if they're all charging sales tax in violation of state law, perhaps you should get on the phone to the authorities instead of bellyaching about it on an internet forum.
Looking at the area around my town, transfers go from $15 on the low end, to $50 on the high end, with lots of room in between. Most of the dealers in town seem to be charging $20-$35.
Do I have access to their General Ledger/Operating Statements stating that they are in fact giving that unearned tax money to the State... Nope.
Then all you have is a feeling, which is no logical basis for making accusations. It might be a starting point from where an investigation would start, but that's about it.
My father or mother buying a firearm wouldnt know what is right or wrong with the fees some are charging and business practices they are using are illegal or immoral. Neither would someone new to our shooting sports (I was confused for a while). All I am doing is just asking that people wise up to the business practices of FFL dealers that I have noticed quite increasingly lately.
If your father or mother don't know the ins and outs of what's going on, how likely is it that they'll be purchasing their first firearm off of Gunbroker or calling a distributor up to give them a credit card number and the address of a gun dealer?
If they're buying a firearm off the shelf at the local gun shop, it's perfectly reasonable that they would expect to pay sales tax as well as a fee for the NICS check. Of course, it's good business practice to let the customer know that they'll have to pay a fee for NICS check up front.
So 35 bucks an hour to be on hold is less than they're making sweeping the shop floor or trying to make a sale?
JohnBT nailed this one upthread.
Now $25-$35 for the transfer, which you admit is what the dealers you know charge, is "practically for free"?
The last gun I had transferred cost around $700. Even if I had paid $35 for a transfer it only amounts to about 5% of the cost of a gun that I would have paid significantly more for in a retail store.
If I'm already saving a bundle of cash by ordering directly from the distributor/manufacturer, I see no reason to begrudge the fact that my FFL makes a profit off of doing the transfer. After all, the guy's got to make a living somehow.
If that's the case, then why don't they charge the $75 like (apparently) the market will bear?
Because the local market here won't bear that when there are other options available. Things may differ in places like California, where the number of FFL's is probably somewhat more limited and there are additional legal hoops to jump through.
If they didn't want to put up with the hassle of transfers, well, that's why the word "no" was invented.
I don't disagree with you. But that's pretty much what one FFL told me when I asked him about his high transfer prices. Of course, now and again, he might get someone who's willing to pay that price.
FWIW, I don't do business with him.
I'm not trying to berate you personally, Justin; I just think that charging "whatever the market will bear" isn't, in the long run, a sound business choice, even if the business is AT&T, Microsoft, or Joe's Gun Emporium.
I would submit that if the fee being charged is one that would eventually lead to that business losing customers in the long run, then that person is probably charging above what the market will bear.
