USPS Oig Report On Counterfeit Stamps 16 June 2026

@eyeonwall wrote:




Linn's reported postal counterfeits of the Boston 2026 stamps (Scott 6029-6030) as well:

https://www.linns.com/news/us-stamp...-2026-stamps

But again, they don't look especially convincing. Generally speaking, it does seem to be easier to identify counterfeits of engraved stamps.

It always is, because they are not engraved.

The 4959 that I saw did have raised ink, but it still didn't look right

The fake 4959's are lithographed. I posted a Linn's article link a page back.

I can only tell you about the one I saw.

This is great. Thank you for posting. I don't think banning forever stamps would stop anything as USPS has promised that the postage is forever, so the counterfeiters could keep on selling even if USPS stopped.

What is being said is that Forever stamps would no longer be forever. They would be demonetized. How that happens is another very complex matter with lots of unhappy people. Do you pay people for their stamps? You would need to inspect millions of turned-in stamps and likely tell some very angry customers that their stamps aren't genuine and they are out of luck.

The counterfeiters have created quite the mess and the USPS didn't do themselves or their customers any favors by hoping it would all go away by itself instead of growing exponentially into a billion dollar cumulative loss.

USPS should go after ebay and others that advertise these stamps for sale

ccpepper, try reading this thread for the issues mentioned. Said issues include sales on Facebook, Craig's List and similar internet sights.

Oh, and

Thanks for the reminder. Has USPS or DOJ taken any action against these organizations selling the counterfeit stamps?

If no one sends checks through the mail anymore, and no one mails birthday cards or postcards or any other personal letters instead of using texts or email, then what is the 42 billion pieces of First Class Mail that the USPS allegedly delivered last year? That number doesn't include ads or junk mail "Marketing Mail" (another 57 billion) or magazines (2.5 billion) or packages etc.

42 billion First Class letters sent to the 170 million addresses the USPS delivers to, is 247 pieces of mail per year to/from each address, or nearly one letter per delivery day.

I can't remember the last time I received (or sent) a letter with an actual Forever stamp. Rarely once a week, more like once a month. And I thought that the younger generations used postal mail even less than my generation.

In addition to all the Bulk Rate marketing mail, I do get a lot of "non-profit" and "pre-sort" stamped mail from businesses, but they don't use Forever stamps, and even if the non-profit or pre-sort stamps were counterfeited, no respectable business would use them anyway.

So again, who are all the people using Forever stamps and what do they use them for? As suggested elsewhere, maybe narrowing focus on the circles of demand would be a good way to help reduce the problem.

And for e-bay, I know they won't ban the category of discount postage, but how about requiring the vendors of discount postage to use one of e-bay's shipping platforms, or require that the USPS tracking number be entered into e-bay when the "discount postage" is mailed. Neither of these would directly cause e-bay to lose revenue like by banning the category or banning the sellers, nor would it harm legitimate sellers.

There's got to be plenty of inexpensive and creative ways to help address the problem. It seems that those that are affected the most (e.g. USPS) have no money to fight the problem, and everyone else has no incentive to fix a problem that doesn't directly impact them.

"but how about requiring the vendors of discount postage to use one of e-bay's shipping platforms, or require that the USPS tracking number be entered into e-bay when the "discount postage" is mailed."

Exactly what will this accomplish?

> Exactly what will this accomplish?

It would give the investigators more data in the (digital) paper trail, to track where the stamps are coming from (assuming that law enforcement would be able to get ahold of that data), and be able to surge resources into the cities where the biggest sellers are located, and hopefully catch some of the distributors.

Right now, if a package of contraband is sent anonymously, untracked, there is no practical way to know where it came from. (How many packages do you receive with a marker monkey cancel or no postmark at all).

It would take a lot of pressure to get e-Bay to give up a seller's contact info (which is probably fake anyway), but the USPS tracking data is anonymous and seems easier for e-Bay to give up, yet it gives postal investigators exact details about when and where the package was shipped from, which they could then monitor for future shipments and nab the seller. Sounds easy, or maybe this only works in the movies.

Do as Royal Mail did or as La Poste and Die Post do.

Royal Mail added matrix codes to uniquely identify stamps and exchanged genuine stamps without matrix codes for ones with. Of course, they made a mess of it. But one could learn from the mistakes others made. As for those that thought they would save money buy buying at to-good-to-be-true bargains: I would have little sympathy for them. Of course, Royal Mail also forgot to, properly, use the security feature of the matrix code.

The other two are introducing matrix codes on more stamps and, over time, that will be the only choice. They still run the risk of old stamps that are counterfeit being used. However, they use the barcode to sort out counterfeits, track mail, and allow people to scan for information on the stamp design.

I had to provide id to UK e-Bay back in 2025 (think it was a scan of driving licence, and the UK equivalent of SSN) as a private seller. This under Know Your Customer. e-Bay also pass the financial data on to His Majesty's Customs and Excise.