With the well-known increase in demand, and decrease in supply, we here at TFL have noticed an uptick in scams. If you suspect a scammer is operating on TFL, please report them to the staff immediately. You could save a fellow member from being scammed.

BEFORE you send payment:

–Beware of someone who contacts you via PM to sell something. They may be trying to fly under the radar by not posting. Be especially wary if they try to refer you to a third party.

–Be sure that the member is still in good standing at TFL. When a scammer is discovered, they are immediately banned; however, if you already have contact information for them, you might continue the transaction outside of TFL (via email or phone, for example) without realizing they have been banned.

–Engage the person in a conversation. Casual conversation about firearms will be difficult for a person who lives in a country where firearms are heavily restricted, or for a person who isn’t familiar with firearms. The exchange can be very revealing. It will also likely highlight issues with the language since many foreign scammers have difficulty with English. Look for differences in the content of the ad/description or previous posts (which could have been copied from other sources) and the person’s ability to communicate via email or PM.

–Keep in mind that scammers are often posting ads for merchandise they don’t own. They must acquire the pictures, and sometimes the item descriptions from other sources.

You can use Google’s image search capability to look for other instances of the pictures from the ad on the internet. You can also search on the item description or other content from the ad to see if it shows up elsewhere on the web.

When you look at the pictures in the ad, examine them carefully to see if they are cropped or framed in an unusual manner that could be done to eliminate watermarks or other markings.

Ask for an additional picture or two. Be creative in what you ask for so that it’s unlikely that they would already have such a pictures or be able to pull them from an existing ad. For example, you could ask for a picture of the gun with it partially disassembled in a specific manner, or placed with a common item that wouldn’t normally be put in a gun picture. Another good option is to ask for a picture of the firearm next to a piece of paper that has something that you specified handwritten on it.

Ask a specific question or two about the items for sale. Since they may not actually have the items, it can be very difficult for them to answer questions about them.

–Don’t assume that a transaction is legitimate because the person has a long posting history. We have seen situations where scammers have taken over a longtime TFL member’s account and tried to capitalize on their reputation. The amount of money involved in these transactions can be very substantial from the scammers’ perspective which means they may be willing to join and post for several months to build up a reputation–often using posts made of material copied from other sources.

–Keep in mind that scammers sometimes cooperate with criminals in the U.S. to take payment. Don’t assume that just because the payment is going to a U.S. address that the person running the transaction must be in the country.