ATF e-File Website Update

[Jack_Bauer]

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.

[punkey71]

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.


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[Jack_Bauer]

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.

[ThePhonMan]

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?

[domestique]

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.

[OldState]

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

[domestique]

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


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).

[JBecker 72]

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

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.

[OldState]

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).


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.

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.

[domestique]

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.

Mine were trusts.

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

[skydivr]

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

[JBecker 72]

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

[OldState]

They hired this guy to design the website

23362

[punkey71]

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


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[vereceleritas]

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.

[JBecker 72]

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.

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

[glocktogo]

Brought to you by the federal government, makers of:

https://sp1.yimg.com/ib/th?id=H.4881102726957469&pid=15.1&H=181&W=160

[brendon]

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.

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!!

[JG007]

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

[JBecker 72]

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.

[brendon]

I had emailed Lee asking when we might be back up and running. This was her reply at about 7pm -

"It should be back up now. Clear your cache and try it now. I am testing what we think will resolve many of the current issues. Keep your fingers cross.

Lee"

I found I still had problems with Internet Explorer, but it works fine with Chrome after clearing the cache. It even let me upload additional documents to forms already "submitted/in process"!

[BravoHotel]

Anyone mind providing the link to the website? I did a quick search but wasn't able to find anything, or if I did I didn't realize it. Im preparing to send my trust app in via snail mail but thinking I'd rather go this route instead.

[brendon]

https://www.atfonline.gov/

[BravoHotel]

This is what I deserve for trying to use duckduckgo as my search engine. Thank you.

[AFshirt]

I must have gotten lucky then because on 25 January, I logged in and submitted everything from start to finish in about 20 minutes. The only thing I think I messed up on is that I am doing a 300 blackout SBR. One of the drop down choices for caliber is 300 so I chose that one. I read on the 300blktalk forum that you are supposed to choose 7.62 so hopefully everything will be kosher.

[BravoHotel]

Well in a rush to get my Form 1 submitted today while the site was working, I f*d up. Not till after I submitted it did I realize that I uploaded the copy of my trust docs that weren't notarized. :suicide2: I can't seem to find a way to go back and attach the notarized copy to the submitted application. Hopefully they'll come back and ask my for a notarized copy of the trust docs and it won't delay things too badly.

Anyone want to fess up to making a similar stupid mistake that may have some advice/insight?

[BigWaylon]

Best thing for you to do is cancel and resubmit. In general, corrections aren't allowed. They simply deny your application and you start over anyway.

You might spend a day or two using Ask the Experts to see if you can fix it...but I personally wouldn't just let it ride and hope for the best.

[BravoHotel]

Thanks for the advice, BigWaylon. I went through the submitted application again it and I was able to get to the last page where you attach docs before submission/payment and I was able to delete one of the attachments and then attach notarized pdf. It appeared to have saved when I exited and went back in again, so I'm going to assume that it did and cross my fingers.

[BigWaylon]

I'd heard somewhere it was possible to mess with the attachments after it had been submitted, but had no idea what the window for doing that was...glad to know you were able to do that without having to start over. I've gone back into mine and looked at the form before, but have never gone to that last step to see what could be done.

[brendon]

I had forgotten to attach the Schedule A with mine (as stated earlier) and the "ask the experts" said to just open the form and try to upload a copy. It worked for me. I guess we shall see if I get approved, should be within the next month or two.

[BravoHotel]

Good to know, thanks. This whole thing is rather stressful the first time as it would just suck to get rejected and have to start the waiting process all over again.

[LHS]

23477

Holy crap, this website looks like something a student built in 1999. And IE8? WTF, ATF?

[BravoHotel]

That it does! I haven't used the Obamacare website that everyone has been yammering about lately, but the ATF eForm website gave me some insight into what they must be dealing with.

Good God....

[LHS]

Seriously. I wrote apps like this in my first few undergrad Java classes...

Plus, the wait symbol indicates they're using Oracle apps of some sort, probably made with Oracle Application Express or something. This is some rinky-dink Mickey Mouse BS here.

[motoduck]

I could register but could not log in until I used another computer that used Explorer 8. After that it took about 15 minutes to complete a form 1. Not user friendly or as intuitive as a "retail" site but it turned out to less of a hassle than I thought it would be.

[mike240]

I know it's an old thread and searched on the topic but found nothing. Just to advise. I e filed on a trust to SBR two lowers on July 2 and received email of approval yesterday. Not bad at all.