My experience with the NFA E-File system :(

General Firearms NFA
1

Hey guys, just thought I would share my experience the the NFA E-File system:mad:

This was a Form 1 SBR that I was trying to do and I can not emphasize WAS enough.

After going to get my trust notarized today, I came home and uploaded the trust to a PDF file. I then began the LOOOOOOOONG process of trying to get on to the website. After about 4 hours of being re-routed to the “server is down page” I got some luck and finally logged on the the website. I selected the Form 1 from the scroll of forms you can select from and began the process. I got to the part where you have to list your line items(In my case a lower receiver) I started to enter the info and…what the…back to the home page randomly.

No big deal, I just selected the saved form and kept on truckin’ So I get my info entered upload my trust and my certification of compliance and go to pay. Everything is going very smooth at this point, I pay the $200 and the I am prompted to the the LAST FREEKING THING which is to certify and sign. I click the button to certify and sign and…what the…SERVER LOST CONNECTION!!!

I am so freekin’ pissed I cant hardly see straight right now. Well that’s my rant. I just have a couple questions:

1: has anyone had this happen to them at that point in the E-File process

2: If so, and you already paid your money, what did you do to resolve this, does the ATF have an answer for this problem or are you just refunded your money and told to do it all over again

Thanks for reading guys and sorry for the rant, I figured I would post among other firearm people because my family has been looking at me like I’m a retard because of my frustration

2

Welllllp, this stinks to hear. I was going to do a Form 1 tonight myself! :stop: guess I gotta put the brakes on. I may just give it a go anyhow.

3

I spent 5 days from start to finish to efile my Form 1. I finally got done couple of days ago.
They have serious issues with the system. System was down as much as it was on line. When it was working, it was very very slow. Most frustrating part is losing all I have input at an inopportune moment only to go back to the beginning and start all over again that is IF the system hasn’t gone down again.
They have periodic maintenance schedule they take the system down. Then there are the other times when nothing works.

If I hadn’t talked to real people who were honestly trying to help, I would have assumed they are doing this on purpose. I have never encountered a worse thing online in my life. This was worse than Healthcare.gov.

Besides the problems you listed, I had the oddest thing happen to me. System would constantly default to FORM 6!!

I sent a snail mail FORM 1 for another SBR, and then this done with by e-file. Now it is a race to see which one will come through or better yet, which one will be rejected.

For some reason, I had the no problem paying the $200.00 electronically. That was smooth.

PS. I found that very very early or very very late in the day is the best time. At least the system appears to work a while before it crashes. I couldn’t get the system to “save” what I have input. So that was very frustrating.

Done. Now the waiting game starts.

4

I successfully e-filed my form 1 last night. I had tried earlier in the afternoon, but they took the system down for maintenance.

If you successfully made payment, then you should have received an e-mail confirmation of that payment.

5

I’m sure these “issues” weren’t manufactured by an Obama administration minion… Because you know, they just love gun owners and all… Not like they’re trying to thumb our eyes with 41p or anything. :rolleyes:

6

You know, that was my first reaction.

I assumed they were deliberately slowing things down. Then I got to thinking, why would they bother initiating e-filing ESPECIALLY for Trust applications. We certainly weren’t expecting it. Then there were the reports from those who e-filed and got their stamps in less than the third of the time it has been taking doing it the conventional way.

While struggling to finish my application on line due to website problems and the fact that this was my first rodeo, I found myself needing some help and hand holding. I have to share with everyone that my usual paranoia subsided when I received prompt responses to my emails. What was impressive was the fact that two of the emails were responded to at 7:52 PM and 9:59 PM EST.

When was the last time you got a prompt response and a straight answer to your inquiries from any governmental agency.
My hat is off to Gary.N.Schaible at ATF for really trying and understanding the frustration of us all.

7

If you an android phone log back on and go right to the submit button. This was the only way i got it to accept my completed form and the email confirmation.

It worked for me yesterday. After 3 days of trying to submit a for I’ve found the most problem free way is one you get the blue wheel of death to close out of Chrome and log back in. You will get to do a couple pages and the Hey booted again.

Keep at it. It will be worth it in the end.

8

I did get the email confirmation, but I have still not been able to complete the “sign and submit” portion so its just sitting there waiting to be submitted, most frustrating thing I have ever done, seriously!!

9

Which confirmation? Payment? Or “Submitted/ In Process”?

Once you get the “submitted/ in process” you are done. The in a week or 2 it will switch to pending.

10

Just the payment, I still have not been able to get back on and submit the final signature

11

You’ll be fine if you got the payment confirmation. My first one got hung up right after I paid, and when I went back in the next day the Sign & Submit button was activated and ready to use.

No it won’t…Submitted/In Process is the eForm equivalent of Pending. The form will have a Submitted watermark on it. Once you receive the Submitted/In Process email (either initially receive it, or after you’ve cleared Pending Research status), you won’t hear anything until Approved or Denied.

12

Well I have been trying all morning and still nothing.

Here’s a question for you tech savy people. It says that each uploaded document can not be bigher than 3MB, when I uploaded my documentst it says a measurment in bytes and both my documents have about 290,000 bytes. how many bytes are in a MB? Maybe this is where I am screwing up?

I will keep updating the thread, and thanks for all the info/replies

JR

13

If it’s truly showing bytes, you should be good. 290,000 bytes is roughly 290KB or .29MB. (There’s actually 1024 bytes in a KB, not 1000…but it’s a close estimate).

14

Another question, On the Form 1 does the name have to appear exactly like it appears on the trust i.e. can I leave out “revocable living” and just put “trust” at the end of my name

15

It has to match, unless you don’t have enough room.

From an EForms bulletin:

[i]If the trust or corporate name for an eForm 1, 4 or 5 exceeds 50 characters, you will not be able to submit the application. The trust or corporate names are the entries made in the Licensee/Permittee Name on eForm 1 or as the transferee Business Name on eForms 4 or 5.

For example, a trust entitled ‘THE JOHN JAMES DOE AND MARY ANN DOE REVOCABLE LIVING TRUST’ will prevent the submission of the application due to the length of the name. Typically, the form will close when you submit and bring you back to the carousel. You may receive an error message or a message that the application has submitted but it remains in the draft folder.

To preclude this error, an acceptable way to decrease the number of characters is to replace ‘REVOCABLE LIVING’ with ‘RL’ as an acceptable abbreviation for the purposes of the application. Thus, the above cited trust would be shown as ‘THE JOHN JAMES DOE AND MARY ANN DOE RL TRUST’ as the applicant maker or transferee.

Please spell out as much of the trust or LLC name as possible within the 50 character limitation.[/i]

16

Coincidentally, my Class 3 dealer made an error on my form 1 e-file. Instead of the “ABC family trust” as my trust is named, he submitted “ABC trust”.

I called him when I saw the error on the submitted e-file. He said the reviewer should notice the error and will email me that the form will be electronically “opened” so I can make the correction. Sounds easy enough provided I can actually sign on when needed.

He also said it shouldn’t affect the timeline for approval. Of course he might just being saying that to humor me because I was less than pleased with the error. I offered to submit the forms myself but he said he would scan the trust and submit for me since I was using him for the engraving and the suppressor purchase. I’m regretting it a little now.

Hopefully it won’t be a huge set back. Time will tell.

Harold

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

17

If you are having problem with the size of the file you have scanned to attach, like your Trust etc…Check to see to make sure you didn’t do what I did.
The default mode on my scanner was set to scan in COLOR!
Even though the documents were in black and white, the scanned size were huge and I was not able to attach even a single page.
I rescanned everything in black and white and it made a big difference.

18

This is the email I got from the ATF regarding e-Forms.

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.

Please feel free to contact me at anytime if you have any questions or comments at lee.alston-williams@atf.gov or you can use the “Ask the Experts” function within eForms.

Sincerely,

Lenora (Lee) Alston-Williams
Industry Liasion Analyst - IT
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, & Explosives
Office of Enforcement Programs and Services
Firearms and Explosives Services Division
99 New York Avenue, N.E. (6.E-333)
Washington, DC 20226
E-mail: Lee.Alston-Williams@atf.gov
Office: (202) 648-7166
Fax: (202) 648-7166

19

I had this problem when my FFL submitted a couple of form 4s for me. He ended up printing my trust, then re-scanning it into multiple parts. When I submitted my form 1, I use a PDF compression tool to shrink my trust.

20

Ok so I still have not been able to submit my form 1. Now another question…for all of you that have done a form 1 via eforms, what documents are you uploading?

I was told today by the help on the website that you NOT need to submit a certification of compliance with you trust…Is this true or has a form 1 been approved without one of these?

I have been told different