Bought a 4" Victory Model Smith and Wesson .38 S&W and listed as good to very good if I remember correctly. I had it shipped to me and looked good and into the safe it went. It was Dec so there is no way I am going out in -30 weather to shoot so it sat in there until I could get out to the range in April. I always try my reloads in the firearm first to make sure they chamber/feed etc. and when i went to put in the .38 S&W rounds they wouldn't chamber.
It took me a while but under the correct light you can see that the cylinder is a slight different color that the rest of the revolver and on closer inspection the serial numbers do not match. This revolver has been converted to .38 special with a fitted cylinder and hence that is why I couldn't get .38 s&W ammo to chamber.
I learnt my lesson to never trust a gun shop and to always inspect and test within 3 days of the purchase.
Called Epps and of course they were no help at all. I paid a premium for the revolver so it kind of makes me mad I got taken.
Won't deal with them again.
This response will most definitely draw some unfriendly replies, but this issue must be addressed.
Ellwood Epps has a 30-day money-back return policy on all used firearms rated as being in Good condition or better. Guns listed in Fair or Poor condition are not provided with any warranty at all. These measures are clearly outlined on our website, here:
http://ellwoodepps.com/firearm_conditions.htm
This 30-day policy is more than a reasonable length of time for someone to inspect a purchase that they have made and determine whether or not it is to their standards.
You state in your own post that you had the gun for
four months before you made any attempt to load ammunition into it, and that "It took me a while, but under the correct light . . ." to notice the issue you are describing here.
If it took you that long to notice there was an issue with this firearm, do you not think that a salesman bringing this firearm into inventory during a busy day, with multiple guns crossing the counter to be sold or simply handled, with dozens (dare I say
hundreds?) of customers at the counter throughout an entire shift, might just as easily have overlooked those discrepancies the way you did when you first received your order?
We hear this type of complaint quite often, both at our store and on message boards such as this. These complaints are not isolated to Ellwood Epps, but seem to be aimed at just about every single gun shop in existence at one time or another, depending upon which shop is being bashed at that particular moment. The complaint always seems to center around a customer's purchase of an item, and the revelation that there is some issue with that purchase, but only after several months have passed between the date of purchase and their first inspection of the item in question. Of course at that point it is invariably the fault of the store from which the firearm was purchased that the sale in question was not to the customer's satisfaction.
Again, we strongly believe that 30 days is more than enough time to inspect a firearm -- even if you don't shoot it in that time frame -- and determine if there are any visible defects or other questionable elements to that purchase. Whether or not you actually
shoot the gun in question, we have always advised our buyers that we can make adjustments to an order, or refund a purchase on a used gun during that 30-day period. But you must accept at least some of the responsibility for this problem when you did not make the effort to ensure that the purchase you had made was to your satisfaction within that reasonable time frame.
There was no malicious intent as part of this sale to "take" you, nor to intentionally sell an item that was not as it was advertised. Unfortunately, mistakes do happen, and as you noted, it took some time for you to notice this particular mistake yourself, even when you had the firearm in your possession for several months, as you claim, and all that time to inspect it at your leisure.
Of course there will be responses following this post to the effect of
"Ellwood Epps should do the right thing and refund the buyer's money for this purchase." Certainly there will. We would expect nothing less, would we? But at what point does the ownership of the issue shift to that of the customer? Should we take back firearms that were sold four months ago when the buyer made no effort in that time to inspect their purchase? What about six months? What about a year? Why not ten years? What is the reasonable time in the eyes of customers in general to accept a firearm as a return if it does not live up to the buyer's expectations, but sat uninspected and unconsidered until the issue came to light?
It would be great if some other dealers joined this (no doubt soon to be lively!) discussion and weighed in on their own return policies for used guns, and situations such as this one.
Still, as seems to be the norm these days, 100% of the error
must fall upon the evil retailer's shoulders, otherwise these boards would be strangely empty when it comes to complaints, would they not?
