Palmetto State Armory review: Customer Service at Columbia, SC Fernandina Road location

Date of incident: June 17, 2023.

My family had a very bad experience with this business. My husband was well taken care of by the associate who helped us select the weapon we wanted to buy. We had great customer service up until it came down to the background check. Before I go any further please understand that both my husband and I work for the state and federal governments and recently had our background checks completed (within the past 2 months) with no issues. For some reason one of the associates from this business approached us in front of several other customers and told us we were denied. He didn't provide us with any information at first. We had to ask him what to do. And he responded in an unprofessional manner and told us to go to just go to the ATF website to see why we were denied. We have purchased several weapons in the past from other dealers and never experienced this and never had any issues. In my opinion, they should take people aside and deliver this info instead of trying to humiliate someone in front of others. Since this happened on the Saturday prior to Father's Day, we couldn't address this until the following Monday. After going to the ATF and contacting the FBI, we learned that this store did not provide us with the necessary information to follow up on a denial. At a minimum we needed the NICS number. We called Palmetto State Armory, and they stated that NICS numbers couldn't be provided over the phone. So why did we have to ride 40 minutes back over there when we could have been given that before? Anyways, whenever we got there, we learned the guy lied to us about being denied. Two other nice associates from that location researched the issue and stated that we should have never been told that we were denied, because we weren't denied at all. The application was just flagged due to how my husband completed it. My husband just completed a part of the form incorrectly since this was a new form that was recently released and my husband wasn't familiar with it. So all he needed to do was reapply again and take his time through the form ensuring that he answered each question appropriately. In all honesty, I feel that the fact that we're an African American family played some part in the treatment we received. But the kindness of the other associates doesn't make me feel as if the whole organization supports this treatment. Lesson learned. If someone says that you've been denied, ask for the NICS number. We didn't know any better since this was the first time that someone said we were denied.