ATF e-File Website Update

General Firearms NFA
1

The below is an email I received from the ATF about the e-file website, it doesn’t look good. Shades of the obama healthcare website.

Good morning registered eForms users:

For the past two weeks you have been experiencing various performance related issues while attempting to use eForm. These issues have included slow response times, inability to finalize and submit forms, pay.gov screen not displaying, inability to select product types for some submissions, inability to view PDF’s, the system abruptly returning the user back to the home screen, and some of you have not been able to log in at all. While any of you have been able to successfully submit your eForms, others have not been able to get them out of your “Draft” folders.

First, we want to offer our sincere apology for what you are currently experiencing while using eForms. The quality of eForms’ current performance is not indicative of the quality of performance that ATF strives to provide its customers. We share your current frustrations and we want you to know that we are doing everything that we can to address these issues. We continue to meet every day with “experts” in the field, and we are confident that we will soon find a solution.

We believe that eForms is a worthwhile investment for us, as well as for you, the firearms industry. And we think that you feel the same. The statistics below are reflective of this week’s work (our eForms week is calculated from one Wednesday to the next for reporting purposes):

New eforms user registrations: 405
Form 1 submissions: 208
Form 3 submissions: 930
Form 4 submissions: 898

So, in spite of the performance issues, eForms is doing what it was designed to do. It may be slower and it may be temperamental at times, but we believe it to still be a worthwhile investment.

We are committed to provide, you, our customers, the best service that we can and to this end we will continue our efforts to resolve the issues with our eForms system. While we are trying to resolve these issues it may be necessary for us to perform system restarts throughout the day where we may bring eforms down for an hour or so. We request your patience with us and your understanding that this process is unavoidable until we can correctly identify and resolve the issues.

We will provide you with periodic updates on our efforts to ensure you of our commitment and to keep you informed. We thank you for your patience and your continued use of eForms until these issues are resolved.

2

I got the same email as well.

It just seems hard to believe that it’s THAT hard to make it work. I can’t help but think that anything to make Class 3 stuff a bigger pain to obtain than it already is HAS to be intentional.

That’s just my bitterness and impatience talking…kinda.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

3

My feelings exactly, and you can sure bet they will take their sweet time in trying to resolve any issue if at all. I think this system would work great and quick but they don’t seem to give a rats donkey. It really ticks me off to see the money this county wastes overseas and else where that could fix our own problems here at home.

4

Lets assume, for the sake of argument, that each one of those transactions is an independent transaction.

Any web site that cannot handle 2441 transactions in a week is a festering POS (and that’s a technical term).

This is not a technology problem. You could run a site with that little traffic on a desktop machine under somebody’s desk using dial up. This is a lack of priority in addressing customer needs. I work for a software company and even a green intern can produce product that exceeds this level of “performance” on their first day.

You guys are right. They don’t care if the user experience sucks, they want to make it as difficult and painful as possible for us to get any NFA item. They’re assuming we will give up.

Want to bet that it gets “fixed” just after the new Trust rules go into effect?

5

I submitted a Form 1 yesterday. Took me 3 days and 1.5-2 hours to complete something that should have taken 10 minutes.

The server kept booting me or would freeze up. Or there would be hours of time that it shouldn’t let you log on.

My advice: save frequently and don’t waste your timing waiting if you get the blue spinning wheel of death for longer then 30 seconds. Log off and then log back on.

The hardest part was finally submitting the finished form. I ended up using my Android phone to trick the server into accepting it. Lol.

6

prior to these issue is there a consensus that the eform was actually reducing approval times?

7

That’s what the reports are. I’ve heard anywhere from 2.5-4 months. I wonder how many of those were examiners just doing some eforms out of order to test the system.

I’ll let you know by summer time. I did a form 1 by snail mail in October, and did an eform yesterday… They should both arrive around the same time if the timelines are still accurate (9 months to 4 months).

8

There were a bunch of guys on TOS who submitted in early October and got their stamps mid January. I’m gonna be submitting ones in the next 2 weeks for a SBR and suppressor.

9

Well that is good to hear. The wife has approved some purchases for my 40th B-Day later this year and I may be doing 3-4 NFA items as soon I get my Trust worked out. I was thinking it would be 18 months if I had to space some things out. Her approval process is almost as tedious as the ATF.

Were these Trusts? My local dealer is saying that Trusts were taking 2-3 months less time than individual via snail mail. You would think that if they ever got their shit together with this efile stuff a Trust approval could be a very short time…if they wanted to.

10

Mine were trusts.

Fwiw, I was quoted 9 months for snail mail after your form goes pending.

11

Did the same company that got the contract to this website also get the Obamacare contract??

12

I’m not sure if those guys had trusts or individuals. I’m not going the trust route.

13

They hired this guy to design the website

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14

I guess the question is, is there ANYTHING we can do about it?

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

15

Only trusts can be E-filed. Individuals require fingerprints which cannot be accepted if they’re sent electronically. If you plan on going the individual route, snail mail is your only option.

16

Ah. I was under the impression an individual could do it. Well that kind of stinks.

17

Brought to you by the federal government, makers of:

18

I submitted two form 1’s in November. I called on Monday and was told they would be done probably late March. That would make it between 4 and 5 months. I forgot to include the schedule a’s on those and was told I should be able to upload them to the files online, but the stupid website is now not working.

I bought two suppressors last week and the store tried to efile as well. He was able to get one submitted before the crash…
Other customers at the store said they got stuff approved in 90 days!!

19

I was working with my LGS last week to set up eFiling, their system went down but was back today.

I also spoke to the head guy at the ATF and he said they are trying to get the eforms approved in 3-4 months

20

Bah, I should have just done this last March when I said I was going to. Then I would already have my suppressed 11.5" rifle.