Suppressors Valuable lesson with the ATF - wait for the denial, dont send corrected forms proactively

[craigos]

Context:

I had 2 cans and 1 sbr at a FFL/SOT dealer - can A was submitted (Form 4 trust on all 3 items) in July 2016, the SBR was submitted in Sept 2016 and can B was submitted Nov 2016.

ATF contacted us with a denial on Can A in March 2017, one of the sentences in the amendment of my trust they didnt like, so my dealer submitted a new amendment to the ATF and 2 weeks later Can A was approved. Thinking I could avoid the extra 4 weeks on SBR and Can B (knowing those 2 items were submitted with the same trust amendment so will be denied) , I proactively sent a letter to the ATF with their serial #'s explaining the error and included 2 corrected amendments. THIS WAS A HUGE MISTAKE. My thinking was, well the ATF notifies the dealer of the denial via snail mail (2 weeks) and then send the changed amendment back to ATF ( 1 week) and + 2 weeks further for approval. Wait time on Can A was within 1 month of NFA tracker expected date and dates here.

Dealer gets a denial letter on the SBR just a couple days later (it was much more ahead of schedule than I thought) - so dealer sends the corrected amendment back to ATF with an explnation they may also get another. Nothing for 4 weeks - I call the ATF with SBR and Can B serial numbers - they tell me they were resubmitted back to FBI (I was like WTF), well today I got both SBR and Can B (never got a denial from the Can B so that tells me they got the proactive letter) ... the SBR took 4 extra months and the Can B took 2 extra months (ATF is approving Form 4 trust items from Jan - mine were filed in Sept and Nov). What is even more interesting is that both SBR and Can B - because I sent a correction letter proactively for both - were approved on the same day. So clearly sending corrections before denials will cause you an even BIGGER delay, than just waiting for the denial and responding. Also if you send multiple corrections they seem to "join" the two forms together ...

Morale of the story - if you know you have other trusts being processed by ATF that will have issues, DO NOT CONTACT THE ATF proactively - my guess is it resets some process or they cant handle it this way, so they just "resubmit". WAIT FOR THE DENIAL TO REPLY ALWAYS EVEN IF YOU KNOW IT WILL GET DENIED ...... replying to a Denial will add 2-4 weeks, proactively sending corrected forms before the denial can add 3-5 MONTHS.

That was a messed up lesson. Wanted to share to save others the same pain. The government works backwards for sure.

 

[Sierra770]

What was the sentence they didn't like? Did you use a lawyer for amendment or did you or your dealer create and execute it?

 

[craigos]

The amendment states that I am sole trustee for the purposes of the approval ... they didn't like the last 4 words effectively. Removed them and all was cool. Trust was through nfalawyers.com ... Check out their trust. I submitted like 5 items last year since 41F, 2 got through no issue, then denial, removed the sentence , all other 3 approved.

 

[Strykervet]

Yeah, contact Dennis Brislawn in WA for a watertight trust.

And here's a heads up: if you're wife is also trustee, make SURE she isn't also a grantor. IF you ever get a divorce, you'll have to run around like me and wait a month and pay another $250 to get the trust restated and have her removed (IF she agrees to it, if she doesn't then it gets even more complicated!). In short, only ONE grantor, YOU. A grantor can remove trustees. A grantor cannot remove another grantor.

In the past, ATF has sent me one rejection (which was fixed right away and sent back and went right back in line) and one correction (basically the same thing? except it doesn't get rejected, you just have to send 'em a piece of paper before they release the stamp). Sometimes they go directly to the person doing it, not just to the general address.

It can be anal, my correction was because I put "The" in front of my trust in one line and "The" isn't in the title. The rejection was really a correction, they didn't understand LMT serial numbers and wanted to know if LMT was part of the SN or not (a fucking phone call to LMT would have take care of that, but no, they'd rather do it the hard way).

At least it's not 41f season and we're all waiting around for 2 years to pick up a purchase.

 

[chadholl]

Great info to know. I've had one that was post 41F that was denied. I made the corrections and was approved within two weeks like your observations.

It's silly that trying to be proactive and help them along the process somehow moves you back lol. #ThanksATF

 

[Qazwsx]

Not the same situation, but research your dealer for a can. I made the mistake of picking a local gun store for my first can. They were always “meh” with customer service but selection was good.

Anyway, form 4 for my first can submitted as an efile, they review it (checking for errors is why I paid the outrageous fee). Leave the country for a deployment, check up every three months via email to ask about status, no reported issues. Receive 200$ refund on cc by atf. Email store asking what happened. Get “we tried to call about corrections but you didn’t answer”. Knowing I was deployed and having exclusively used email, they decided to be lazy and try only one way to reach out. So I guess I have to start over.

Moral of the story, know your store or use silencershop I guess :/

 

[LoanHarvey]

Context:

I had 2 cans and 1 sbr at a FFL/SOT dealer - can A was submitted (Form 4 trust on all 3 items) in July 2016, the SBR was submitted in Sept 2016 and can B was submitted Nov 2016.

ATF contacted us with a denial on Can A in March 2017, one of the sentences in the amendment of my trust they didnt like, so my dealer submitted a new amendment to the ATF and 2 weeks later Can A was approved. Thinking I could avoid the extra 4 weeks on SBR and Can B (knowing those 2 items were submitted with the same trust amendment so will be denied) , I proactively sent a letter to the ATF with their serial #'s explaining the error and included 2 corrected amendments. THIS WAS A HUGE MISTAKE. My thinking was, well the ATF notifies the dealer of the denial via snail mail (2 weeks) and then send the changed amendment back to ATF ( 1 week) and + 2 weeks further for approval. Wait time on Can A was within 1 month of NFA tracker expected date and dates here.

Dealer gets a denial letter on the SBR just a couple days later (it was much more ahead of schedule than I thought) - so dealer sends the corrected amendment back to ATF with an explnation they may also get another. Nothing for 4 weeks - I call the ATF with SBR and Can B serial numbers - they tell me they were resubmitted back to FBI (I was like WTF), well today I got both SBR and Can B (never got a denial from the Can B so that tells me they got the proactive letter) ... the SBR took 4 extra months and the Can B took 2 extra months (ATF is approving Form 4 trust items from Jan - mine were filed in Sept and Nov). What is even more interesting is that both SBR and Can B - because I sent a correction letter proactively for both - were approved on the same day. So clearly sending corrections before denials will cause you an even BIGGER delay, than just waiting for the denial and responding. Also if you send multiple corrections they seem to "join" the two forms together ...

Morale of the story - if you know you have other trusts being processed by ATF that will have issues, DO NOT CONTACT THE ATF proactively - my guess is it resets some process or they cant handle it this way, so they just "resubmit". WAIT FOR THE DENIAL TO REPLY ALWAYS EVEN IF YOU KNOW IT WILL GET DENIED ...... replying to a Denial will add 2-4 weeks, proactively sending corrected forms before the denial can add 3-5 MONTHS.

That was a messed up lesson. Wanted to share to save others the same pain. The government works backwards for sure.

Hello, what phone number did you call? I tried looking this up and could not find a phone number.
Thank you so much!