I ordered a couple of Uppers on their website with the 30% off promo they had about a month ago. Even though their website clearly said it was MY responsibility to know my laws, and I know the uppers ordered are not restricted by my already shitty state, CMMG cancelled my order anyway and charged me a 15% restocking fee, which is about $286.

I contacted them several times to try and resolve it and today they finally just said that's our policy and we're keeping your money. I just filed a charge back with my credit card against these dirtbags.

CMMG LITERALLY SUPPORTS GUN CONTROLLERS BY NOT SHIPPING LEGAL ITEMS TO MY STATE

Sounds shitty. But I bet there’s more to this story. I know many retailers have a list of states they won’t ship to even though the products are technically legal there. Not sure if this is the case.

Seems easy enough to program to just not allow orders to go through to those states. Like not even list those states on shipping drop downs when you input the address or something.

But like I said, I bet there’s more to this story.

The entire checkout process says it's my responsibility to know my laws, which is why I didn't order the full firearm I would rather have had, because that would have been banned by my state. The upper however is not restricted by my state and nothing during the checkout process indicated that it would be restricted by CMMG from shipping to my state.  Digging into their policy pages, which how many here do? It does say that they won't ship complete uppers here. If that's your policy then don't let me checkout to begin with like PSA.

There is no more to the story than that.


The bottom line for me is that in this case my state isn't the gun controller, CMMG is.

Isn't Ct a state where you can only purchase ''HBAR'' AR's? A lower that is serialized could be anything you want it to be and I'd bet the state would LOVE to try to go after them if it was ever found in an ''illegal'' form.

Hate your STATE, they are the real issue.

Dispute the charge on your CC

I have several Pre-Ban AR lowers that I can very easily put any AR upper on and even register as an SBR.

Oh don't get me wrong, lots to hate about CT, but in this case they are not the one restricting my access, it's 100% CMMG that is.

Yeah, I did right after I got the last email from them. I don't get it, I don't think they get that this would be the worst $300 spent on negative publicity as I'll be posting it on multiple forums and trolling them on twitter.

One thing to charge a restocking fee on something shipped, then returned.  But, not shipped yet??

That's a big restocking fee

Just dispute it with credit card company.  They’ll get hit with a chargeback and you’ll get your money.  Whole thing will take less than 10 min to file.

Still disconcerting if things are as OP reports.  Is it illegal to ship an upper alone to any state?  I would think not, but then look at the known universe today.  If any company should be pushing for 2A one would think this Co. should be at the top, but attorneys may be the bug in this.

Pretty bad of CMMG.   THEY cancelled the order due to THEIR policies.   Pretty outrageous to do that, even more so to not just say "our bad".
But then to charge a large "restocking" fee on top of that?   Not good.
Yeah, should be an easy dispute on your CC, but it still sucks that they'd act like that.
Maybe just one bad employee; the employment pool is mighty poor these days.  It only takes on bad idiot to screw up a company's rep.

While most rage-posts are off base, I'm kind of with OP on this.  Sounds like a revenue trap.  They know enough to refuse the sale to a state after taking the money - but not enough to just block the order?  They say it's OP responsibility to know his state laws, but then take on the act of saying they know OPs state laws more than OP.

Frankly, the score of CMMG being a good company isn't very good and this isnt the first complaint.  Glad I don't have one - I had thought about getting one of their Radial Delayed Bs.  A friend did - its... OK.  Overpriced by a lot, and had quite a few issues.

Although if I lived in a commie state, I'd be more careful about reading the fine print, a restocking fee is downright stupid. If they were a good company, they would've just built it into their website that wouldn't allow you to checkout, like you said, or just refunded your full purchase amount.

Side note, I rarely buy from manufacturers. There's very little accountability. Stores, like Midway, Primary arms or Brownells, are more dependable.

I think the real issue in this case is the vendor charging a restocking fee on an order they canceled.

Next time he needs to pay closer attention to the terms and conditions.

I'm amazed more outfits don't follow the PSA model.  I've had PSA do unreasonable things FOR me.  Refunds on things I broke via my own errors, support with addition Make-it-right goodies not even asked for.  Etc.  They have a loyal customer who thinks warmly of them, here.  I don't understand why this model isn't more common.  Crap like this thread from CMMG leaves a bad taste more expensive than the ill-gotten gains.

Charging a restocking fee for something they never took off the self?

When it says it right on their website that they don't ship uppers (as well as the cancelation and restock fee),I don't blame the vendor.

Attached File

except it specifically says
'ordering firearms prohibited by your jurisdiction  will result in order cancellation and a 15% restocking fee'

an upper group is neither a firearm nor prohibited by his state

words have meanings

CMMG is wrong on this

Disagree; OP stepped on his dick and did not read the terms. Chalk it up to an expensive lesson, or repent and plead for forgiveness from CMMG.

To find this, you must look under CUSTOMER SERVICE > SHIPPING POLICY.

There is nothing in the checkout process for states restrictions.  All it says is:



Attached File

And?  Took me about 5 seconds to find.  If I lived in a ban state I sure would look it up beforehand.  No excuse not to look it up.

In 2023?  CMMG could well lose if OP takes them to court, as it's an expectation today to have your system auto-kick if this were the case.  Someone could start a class-action at this being a predatory practice, and have a good eough chance of winning as to scare CMMG's insurance to settle for 5-6 figures, and who then raise CMMG's rates a lot more than the $300 they screwed OP out of.

It's a dick-move to fine print shit that any decent ordering system would have reasonably bounced.  If they had wherewithal to cancel his order based on his state, they should have had wherewithal for their automated system to have bounced the order.  Charging windfall fee far above costs, is predatory, in this case.  

It also says much on just how CMMG treats people.

Lawsuits have meanings also. I don't fault any gun company for protecting themselves.

So the big disclaimer didn’t prompt you to check their policy? You looked at it after the fact and try to lay blame at their feet? While personally I’d chalk that up to a misunderstanding and let it slide it’s not like they pulled a bait and switch on you. I’ll agree it’s an asshole thing to do but the blame falls squarely on your shoulders imo.

The charged him a restocking fee on something they never took out of stock in the first place? You’re ok with that?

Nope,  I would contact my CC company.  However,  it is on their website in black and white!

Maybe I'm being obtuse, but a company cancelling your order is different from a person cancelling their own order.
Also there is a difference between returning a cancelled order and cancelling it before it's shipped.
Seems like CMMG has earned a very appropriate ". . . has lost a customer."

How much time do they spend on illegal/invalid orders? All that wasted time adds up.

I have no problems with charging a fee for orders not complying with terms of service/rules/laws, but a percentage fee can get pretty hefty in short order.

It seems that op did his homework and that CMMG went out of their way to come up with a reason to cancel the order. If op deliberately, or even accidentally, placed an errant order their cancellation would make sense and be valid, but he didn't.

Edit: just saw that CT CMMG rules ban uppers too. I don't know how that jives with Connecticut law, but if they clearly state they don't ship uppers to CT, then they don't ship uppers to CT.
I'm shifting the blame back to OP.

i dont fault them for making restrictions

i fault them for not using their published policies or publishing a wrong articulation of their policy

You live in a commie state. Dispute the charges.

Probably not the first charge back rodeo for CMMG. It’s clearly stated in the terms. Interested to see the outcome

They are using their published policy.....and it's their policy so while you may not agree it can't be wrong.

Fake news

So let me get this straight…

A company said in plain English not to order certain things if you live in a certain state.

Additionally it says if you do you can expect a restocking fee.

So the OP ordered stuff and the company did what they said they would do?

Not acceptable. I don't care if it's written down more clearly somewhere else on the site (and it is, but it took several more clicks than I would consider reasonable), if they say "know your laws" as a shorthand at any point during checkout even if the other parts of the checkout are more explicit and restrictive and the OP knew it was legal then he is in the right and CMMG is in the wrong. I'm going to assume here that OP is correct on the law.

Additionally, CMMG has no excuse for publishing policies with such a large penalty but not enforcing them pre-checkout in their ecommerce. That's table stakes in current_year. Keeping the restocking fee policy in place means they have created for themselves a strong incentive to not fix that problem, which is customer hostile.

Even if OP is wrong about the law for his state, CMMG still has a major issue in that their website is allowing customers to land themselves in hot water to the tune of hundreds of dollars. That is not winning them any friends, and just because it is written down as a policy does not make it right or legal.

CMMG could have made this right by refunding, but didn't. They've earned the chargeback.
They could avoid future chargebacks by fixing their website.

Stupid should hurt!

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Why would I? The checkout told me to know my laws and these are not restricted in my state. I know my laws, they apparently don't.

I already filed the chargeback which I expect I'll win easily, if not I will file a small claims case against them.

The problem is that their checkout told me to know my state's restrictions, not CMMG's restrictions.  I was making sure I followed the states gun control policy, duh - I should have checked with CMMG's gun control policy too.

maybe you should read it again.

"'ordering firearms prohibited by your jurisdiction  will result in order cancellation and a 15% restocking fee'"

he did not order a firearm nor did he order anything prohibited by his jurisdiction

Attached File

I didn't bother looking at their shipping restrictions since all screens from adding to cart to checking out clearly said it was my responsibility to know my state laws, and as much as my state sucks, they aren't restricted by the state.

If it said something during the checkout process they'd be in the right. If they had a little button like Brownells that said can we ship this item to you, they'd be right, if they had checkout disabled for certain items like PSA they'd be right.
They do none of those, they are in the wrong.

Under Conneticut it clearly states uppers....you can keep trying, but you are only digging a deeper hole.  Their policy is clear.  OP didn't read it, not CMMG's fault.  I don't agree with the restocking fee on a non shipped and returned item, but it's their policy and we all check the "I've read the terms and agreements" box without reading......

Ignorance is what I see.

while they will not ship him an upper IAW their policy, the only thing that triggers a 15% restocking fee is articulated as:

"'ordering firearms prohibited by your jurisdiction  will result in order cancellation and a 15% restocking fee'"

he did not order a firearm

CMMG charged him a 15% fee anyway

words have meaning

This, and why argue with someone when they didn't ship it?  Seems like they are saying that once an item leaves their possession they have to spend time inspecting it to re-stock it because of their warranty.  If they canceled the order before it was even pulled, they are just being obnoxious.  Besides, CC companies are going to rule against a gun company pretty much every time, so not only are they making bad press, i'd bet a 6-pack they lose.

"By accepting this brick through your window,  you agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement ..."
"By purchasing from this site, you agree to provide your first born in addition to the stated ... "
There are obvious limitations to these policies and agreements, both in when terms can apply and what the terms can require.

Your limitations are clearly further out than mine. That's fine, but it's ridiculous to call someone who is unpleasantly surprised by such odd policies 'stupid', especially when most other vendors have those limitations encoded in the shopping cart software.

There's a commonly understood set of standards for how retailers behave, and this policy is out of line with that expectation. Restocking fees on items before they are even shipped out is an absurdity to begin with. It's also not in any way related to the actual cost of restocking the 'returned' item, since it's still sealed and has never left the retailer's possession, which is what restocking fees are for.
I'm not sure there is any defense of a restocking fee for items that were not shipped.


Consider walking into a physical store. Would you consider it just the natural and normal pain of being stupid if they charged you $300 in restocking fees when you tried to check out with items that are perfectly legal in your state, but against their policy to sell? Or rather, after you paid but before you could walk out with the items.
That's the closest analog here, and you're defending that practice for what I would consider a fairly absurd percentage of the order cost.

I think it could be reasonable to charge a fee that covers the manual checking process (<$50), and to not return the credit card processing fees (~3% usually?). It would be even more reasonable with some changes to the language used during checkout. These would at least be defensible fees, though very poor compared to most other retailers who charge no such fees and try to make their order process as consumer friendly as possible.



Another improvement they could make is reiterating the limitations during checkout once you know the destination and billing states - filter the restrictions and present them again since the website is perfectly capable of doing so:

For Connecticut, these are CMMG's published restrictions.
1. No magazines greater than 10 rounds.
2. No rifles, pistols, SBRs, or upper groups.
3. No stripped lowers, lower sub-assemblies, or complete lower groups of any kind.
4. No folding/telescoping/thumbhole/or pistol grip stocks, braces, pistol grips, vertical grips, muzzle devices, upper receivers (stripped or complete), threaded barrels, handguards.

It's worth noting many (most?) of these restrictions appear to be above and beyond CT's actual laws. I assume without evidence this is much like when ammo sites stopped shipping to MA entirely after the AG sent nastygrams that (paraphrasing) threatened infinite tax-payer funded frivolous lawsuits until the ammo places went out of business entirely. Maybe there's something I'm not seeing for CT.
To this day I still only order from the ammo places that would ship to MA regardless.



Or CMMG could ignore all that a keep having threads like this I guess. That sounds easier, and stupid should hurt, after all. Only for consumers though, when the retailer is stupid we should defend them and their policies at all costs.

Dick move by CMMG.  

Go to court for $286?  With a clear cut policy in place?  I'm willing to bet that his credit card company will get him the $286 back, but I'll also bet the OP reads things clearly before he orders again from anywhere.