With Black Friday only four days away, all the big deals are finalised. We’ve now seen the top deals with ad scans from Best Buy (52-pages), Kohl’s (64-pages), Target (47-pages) and Walmart (32-pages). But there is a headline deal at Walmart which hides a nasty surprise…

This is the seventh article in my Black Friday ‘Nasty Surprises’ series. Working with BestBlackFriday.com, I’m analysing the largest Black Friday 2018 sales to help you spot the big deals you should avoid. And here you can read about the nasty surprises at Amazon, at Best Buy, at Costco, at Kohl’s, at Target and at Walmart.

But it is Walmart’s second appearance in my Nasty Surprises Series, which concerns me now.

Walmart's Black Friday 2018 sales have a nasty new surprise

In short: Walmart’s heavily promoted Black Friday iPhone deal is not what it seems.

On paper, the store’s promise of a $300 gift card with activation of an iPhone XS, XS Max or iPhone XR (See Ad Scan Deal) makes this the best Black Friday iPhone sale available. But, as one reader pointed out to me, Walmart is actually asking inflated prices for several models.

For example, the official iPhone XR retail price is $749 for 64GB (Apple site) but Walmart is charging $799 (source) which is the same price Apple charges for the 128GB model. Walmart is also asking almost $30 more for the iPhone XS (source) than the official retail price (Apple site).

Given Walmart’s $300 deal is just $50 better than its closest rival, Target - see ad scan deal, the store no longer stands out as the only place to buy an iPhone XR or iPhone XS on Black Friday.

And this delivers a timely warning.

Walmart's iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max and iPhone XR are not what they seem

Many Black Friday deals highlight the discount but they rarely promote the original asking price. If the asking price was inflated, then the discount is not as good as it seems. This may appear obvious but in the Black Friday rush, it is easily missed.

And assumptions lead to wasted cash. For example, Amazon is not the best place to buy several of its own Echo and Fire devices Kohl’s is cheaper. And you should not buy any games console (Xbox One S, Xbox One X, PS4 Slim, Nintendo Switch) at Best Buy, Target or Walmart. There’s are much better deals elsewhere.

As I always say: Be deal-smart, Not store-loyal.

If you’d like to track my daily Black Friday 2018 guides, leaks and recommendations, hit the Follow button on my author page or follow me using any of the social media links below.

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More of my Black Friday Guides on Forbes

Buying ammo in CA after Jan 1, 2018 - the handbook! (tl;dr and the long version)

Tl;dr - Come Jan 1, 2018 (2 months, 17 days from this posting) You have to go through an FFL in some way to get ammo that you didn't load yourself.

• Buy it from the FFL, buy online and ship it to the FFL, or meet your buddy at the FFL to buy his ammo - it all has to go through the FFL.

• Yes, the FFL can/will charge you a fee.

• Yes, you'll need a license to buy ammo but not until AFTER Jul 1, 2019.

• No, reloading supplies are NOT affected by the new laws - any reloading supply you can have shipped to your home right now, you'll be able to have shipped to your home after Jan 1, 2018.

• Yes, getting a 03FFL and a CoE lets you buy ammo online and have it shipped to your door - NO FFL BULLSHIT and maybe no CA licensing bullshit come Jul 1, 2019 (I can't find a hard source either way on this, so I'm not sure if you'll need the $50 license/tax or not).

• NO you cannot drive/walk/fly/boat/hitchhike/click your heels and think of England your way out of CA, buy ammo, and come back into the state with ammo you bought out of state.

Not Tl;dr:

This is the LAW It's a very stupid law, but it's the one we got. Josh groban youtube.

The full law, when it was passed, would have required us to get a 'permit' to buy ammo. $50 fee to run a background and if we passed, our name is put on a list of people allowed to buy ammo. If you're name isn't on the list, you can't buy ammo. It would also force us to involve an FFL in the process of buying our ammo, be it that we went to the FFL and bought from them, or we bought online and had it shipped to the FFL, or we met someone at the FFL so the FFL could approve of two private people selling ammo to each other.

However, CA DOJ couldn't get their shit together fast enough to be able to have people buying permits on/before Jan 1, 2018 so they got an extension on their homework and the license part of the law doesn't go into effect until Jul 1, 2019. So, for now at least, we only have to worry about the FFL shit.

What? Oh, you don't want to go to an FFL and give them another fucking bullshit fee because the state told you too? You don't want to pay an FFL's bend-you-over prices for ammo when you can buy the same goddamn thing for half the price online? Well then, you need a 03FFL and a CA CoE don't you.

Nintendo ds rom hacks. Yes, a 03FFL and CA CoE exempts you from this law:

(c) Subdivisions (a) and (b) shall not apply to the sale, delivery, or transfer of ammunition to any of the following:

(6) A person who is licensed as a collector of firearms pursuant to Chapter 44 (commencing with Section 921) of Title 18 of the United States Code and the regulations issued pursuant thereto, whose licensed premises are within this state, and who has a current certificate of eligibility issued by the Department of Justice pursuant to Section 26710.

What is a 03FFL?

03FFL is a 'Curio & Relic FFL #03 License'. It lets you do a few things including buying/selling 'curio & relic' rifles/hand guns with little to no FFL involvement, depending on what you are buying/sell you can have things shipped directly to your door. You cannot use this as a business license, you are NOT a tabletop FFL. If you want to know more, Google it. Right now we only care about the fact that IT IS STEP ONE TO MAKING YOU EXEMPT TO THE NEW CA AMMO LAWS.

How much does it cost and how do I get a 03FFL?

Costs $30 and is good for 3 years, it is another $30 every 3 years to renew the license.

Getting it is VERY easy. Fill out a couple of pages of paperwork, print two copies, sign a few places, mail one copy to ATF and another copy to the chief LEO of your area. I could write a guide for this but GarandGear.com has a great one.

Good news is also that if you use the ATF electronic form, it does half the work for you since it copies the needed information that you fill out in ATF's copy of the form into the CLEO copy of the form making it so that you only have to fill out this shit once. Yay, technology!

IMO GarandGear.com has the best 03FFL guide, but Ammoland.com and nevadashooters.com have good ones also.

Now you just need a CA CoE and you're set!

What the hell is a CA CoE?

Well, it wouldn't be California if there wasn't extra steps and another fee to doing what the rest of the nation does. CA CoE is a California Certificate of Eligibility.

Fuck. How much?

Depends, but between $71 and $100 give or take.

Fine, how?

Honestly the best guide for this is from the CA DOJ website

The jist of it is: You need to fill out two forms Both are on this page

You take the 'REQUEST FOR LIVE SCAN SERVICE' form to a live scan service place (local PD can do this and does it cheaper/free depending, but most you have to call and make an appointment - Riverside PD when I called said it was a 3 week wait so I went to a private operator instead)

The 'Live Scan operator' will charge you the state fee of $71 dollars ($54 goes to DoJ, $17 to the FBI) and their fee also, the live scan operator fee depends on who you get the scan from - I paid $30.

The live scan operator will fingerprint you and then give you an ATI number, you write the number in your form and mail the form in to CA DoJ.

That is what I did. Since I did that, they have a new electronic way of submitting the information using CFARS. Read the CA website for information on that, I didn't use it so I can't comment on it.

The CoE is good for 1 year and costs $22 per year to renew. You do NOT have to re-fingerprinted to renew.

Wow, this is a lot of fees. Is this worth it?

Um..maybe. All in you're looking at $100-130ish for the 03FFL and CA CoE, plus another $22 every year to renew the CoE and $30 every 3 years for the 03FFL.

If you want start or do collect old guns, it is very worth it. Saving yourself the FFL fees on just one or two rifles pays for the whole thing.

If you're doing this to get around CA ammo laws come Jan 1, 2018 then..costwise it depends on how much ammo you use, what the FFL fees near you will be, the price difference in ammo that you can buy cheap online Vs. buying at the FFL, etc, etc. But, lets be real here, we all know the FFLs are going to screw us. Since they CAN charge a fee, they WILL charge a fee. Since buying ammo online for cheap will be harder, we're more likely to buy from an FFL and the FFL mark up will be bullshit, more bullshit than it is now. I don't have hard numbers to show you since I haven't see any - but this is California, I would be shocked, stunned, and would eat tofu for a week if getting a 03FFL and CA CoE wasn't cheaper than dealing with the FFL bullshit.

Also, we get the satisfaction of sticking it to California lawmakers. And that is priceless.

Well..okay. How long does all of this take?

My CA CoE came to me at literally 1 month after I mailed the paperwork, to the day. I..still haven't gotten my 03FFL but that is because I fucked up the paperwork, never saw their 'you dun fuked up' letter, the ATF lady I called to ask about it was a moron, my case officer never returned my three phone calls, and so after 3 months I've now RESUBMITTED my paperwork and am waiting. The ATF tells me 2-3 months and that is in line with what other people have said also.

If you act like NOW you might have it all before Jan 1, 2018 or at least very shortly after.

If you have any questions, I'll answer what I can. Please know that I am NOT a lawyer, law enforcement officer, or an expert in any way, shape, name, or form. I'm a random dude on the internet that did a lot of research, read a lot of stuff, and is trying to help us all survive this ammo-apocalypse.

Like I said in another thread, I wrote half of this while watching the Dodger game last night, then deleted it muttering 'the fuck am I doing, no one cares'. That was before a few people asked me about it and I decided to write it up and not delete it. So cheers to them, /u/travelstar, /u/midnightblade, /u/amadsonruns, and /u/Hotsushi

EDIT: Q&A from people that are worth putting here also.

If I take a shooting trip into a free state and buy ammo there, can I bring back the remaining ammo that I haven't shot off?

No.

(a) Commencing January 1, 2018, a resident of this state shall not bring or transport into this state any ammunition that he or she purchased or otherwise obtained from outside of this state unless he or she first has that ammunition delivered to a licensed ammunition vendor for delivery to that resident pursuant to the procedures set forth in Section 30312.

Unless you have a 03FFL and CA CoE.

(b) Subdivision (a) does not apply to any of the following:

(5) A person who is licensed as a collector of firearms pursuant to Chapter 44 (commencing with Section 921) of Title 18 of the United States Code and the regulations issued pursuant thereto, whose licensed premises are within this state, and who has a current certificate of eligibility issued by the Department of Justice pursuant to Section 26710.

So if I were to get a 03FFL and CA CoE, could I then sell ammo legally to people in CA? Or is that a separate license?

No, you can BUY it - selling it requires a separate vender's license. Last I heard you needed a vender's license to sell more than 500 rounds per year and it was a $200 fee for the license.

I can't find current hard sources for either of those numbers though, so they might have changed. However - I am sure that you do need a vender's license of some sort that is DIFFERENT and NOT covered by the 03FFL/CA CoE.