well I won't blame armistlst for your bad experience, there are scammers every where, and there site even states this info
and there ONLY doing a service of having a place MANY folks go to , to look for guns
they have nothing to do with the sale itself
this si why I NEVER hand over anything till I am sure I am paid in full, its always part of my sale conditions
as sadly there are just WAY too many scammer out there, coming up with new ways to scam people every where, from fake cash, to fake USPS Money order to you name it
anything I have ever sold(and last few yrs sold a TON of things, I have used USPS Money orders on out of state or far away sales, and STATE< ITEM doesn't ship till it clears at post office,
if this doesn;t work, then DON"T buy my items!
I would gather with a GOOD relationship with a GOOD dealer, you can get payments on shipping gun sales and have them CHARGE the sale via a CC and then have the dealer pay you, minus there commission of the sale/transfer!
or this would be one way to maybe help see a transfer gets done right, ONLY flaw would be if dealer tried to screw you out of your payment, but again, this is why having a good dealer your well with is worth having over some of the BIG chain stores, better prices on things ain;'t always the reason to buy some place IMO!
but again, I wouldn't be blaming Armslist for a scammer,
there only providing a site for those to look at things, sales will always fall on seller IMO
NEVER hand over anything till paid in full, or you can get burned!(same goes for paying any contractor too, there maybe worse for scamming folks, starting a job, taking full payment and then never coming back to finish and very HARD to get your money back or work done most time, legal costs can be more than you'd ever get back and they KNOW IT)