Selling a catalytic converter in Alaska

Who may sell a detached converter

Alaska puts no licensing or status test on the seller. The 2014 act that created the record requirements repealed AS 08.60.010, which had required a junk dealer or metal scrapper to hold a license, so neither side of a converter sale needs a trade-specific license, although an organization seller's general state business license number is recorded. The statute also names no class of seller who is shut out and sets no minimum age. What it does instead is attach paperwork to the transaction and leave the rest to the general criminal law on theft and receiving stolen property.

The statute reaches a converter because "scrap metal" is defined as used, discarded, or previously owned brass, copper, bronze, aluminum, lead, stainless steel, catalytic converter material, or other metal, with ferrous metal, beverage containers, gold, silver, and platinum excluded (AS 08.60.290(3)). A scrap metal dealer is anyone who buys scrap metal to resell or process it (AS 08.60.290(4)), and a transaction is that purchase (AS 08.60.290(5)). Because ferrous metal is carved out of the definition, a converter counts as a nonferrous item and the record rules apply to it.

The record rules are keyed to value, not to metal type. They bite on each in-person transaction in which the dealer buys scrap metal for one hundred dollars or more from another person (AS 08.60.200(a)), which in practice catches almost every converter sale. Below that figure the statute requires nothing. There is also an exemption for sellers of any kind who keep a file with the dealer: a person who maintains on file with the dealer a name, address, and telephone number plus either a federal taxpayer identification number or a valid government-issued photo identification card is outside both the record and the signed statement requirements, and nothing limits that to a business seller (AS 08.60.240).

What the buyer must record

For each covered transaction the dealer keeps an accurate paper or electronic record showing the date, time, location, and value of the scrap metal bought, the name of the employee or agent who handled it, and the name, address, and telephone number of the person the metal came from (AS 08.60.200(a), (b)(1) to (3)). The record also holds a description, including the license plate information, of the motor vehicle used to bring the metal in (AS 08.60.200(b)(4)).

Identification depends on who is selling. An individual gives the number of a driver license or of a government-issued photo identification document, or hands over a copy of that document (AS 08.60.200(b)(5)). An organization gives the number of its state business license issued under AS 43.70.020 (AS 08.60.200(b)(6)). The record then carries a description of the metal, weight and quantity included, weighed on a scale that meets the state standards of weight and measure under AS 45.75 (AS 08.60.200(b)(7)).

The last item is a signed statement. Before buying scrap metal for one hundred dollars or more the dealer has to make the seller sign a written or electronic statement that the metal is not stolen property, the seller dates it, and the dealer or the dealer's employee or agent witnesses the signature (AS 08.60.210). That statement goes into the transaction record (AS 08.60.200(b)(8)). Records stay on file for five years after the date of the transaction (AS 08.60.230) and are made available for inspection by a law enforcement officer during regular business hours, or at reasonable times where the dealer keeps no regular hours (AS 08.60.220).

How you are paid

Alaska says nothing about how a scrap metal dealer pays. The chapter sets no ban on cash, no ceiling above which a check is required, no rule about who the check is made out to or where it is sent, and no waiting period before the seller can collect. Payment method is left to the dealer and the seller. The only money-related requirement is that the amount be written down: the record of the transaction has to state the value of the scrap metal purchased (AS 08.60.200(b)(1)).

Nothing in the chapter requires a dealer to hold a converter in its received condition for any number of days before processing or reselling it, and Alaska has no statutory hold-notice procedure for scrap metal of the kind several other states use. The practical consequence is that a buyer's own policy, not the statute, decides whether you are paid in cash, by check, or by transfer, and how quickly. Where a dealer chooses to mail payment, the address recorded under AS 08.60.200(b)(3) is what it will go to.

Penalties

The chapter's own offense is narrow and lands on both sides of the counter. A dealer who knowingly fails to comply with the record requirement or the signed statement requirement is guilty of a class A misdemeanor, and so is any person who knowingly makes a false entry for a record required under either section (AS 08.60.250). "Knowingly" carries the meaning given in AS 11.81.900 (AS 08.60.250), so an honest mistake in a record is not the offense; a deliberate false entry by a seller is.

Beyond that, a stolen converter is punished under the general theft statutes, graded by value. Theft of property worth two hundred fifty dollars or more but less than seven hundred fifty dollars is theft in the third degree, a class A misdemeanor (AS 11.46.140(a)(1), (b)). At seven hundred fifty dollars or more but less than twenty-five thousand dollars it becomes theft in the second degree, a class C felony, and repeat theft convictions in the preceding five years can lift a smaller amount into that grade (AS 11.46.130(a)(1), (a)(6), (c)). At twenty-five thousand dollars or more it is theft in the first degree, a class B felony (AS 11.46.120).

Alaska separately licenses the yard itself rather than the trade. A commercial or public junk yard needs a certificate of location approved by the city council, the borough assembly, or the commissioner of public safety depending on where it sits (AS 08.60.050, 08.60.060), and operating one without that certificate is a misdemeanor carrying a fine of up to five hundred dollars, up to a year in jail, or both (AS 08.60.090). That is a land-use control on the buyer's site, not a restriction on selling a converter.

What this means when you sell to us

Bring a government photo ID. Businesses bring their Alaska business license number instead. You sign a statement that the converter is not stolen, dated and witnessed, and we keep it with the record (AS 08.60.210). We log the date, time, value, and a description of each unit, and we keep all of it for five years (AS 08.60.230). Alaska sets no payment rules, so our own terms apply and you are paid the way we agreed.