This Cannot Be Legit?

Ebay won't because they make money from it. You'd have to prove that every single reseller was selling fake stamps and they don't really care. Tons of people are selling and they're going to find more, no matter what anyone does. This is a fight that can't be won at the street level.

The USPS has the equipment to detect counterfeit stamps but obviously are not acting on what is found. Why? Could it be that it would mean rejecting millions of mail pieces and bringing too much attention to their inaction on a huge problem?

I agree with the analogy to the illegal drug issue and here is my opinion.

Does it make sense to try to fix the illegal drug use by arresting the users and low level street dealers (the 'ground up approach')? Or do you try to fix the issue by cracking down on the source(s) and primary traffickers (the 'top down approach')?

As was stated before, the countries of the world can stop this by implementing trade sanctions against the countries of manufacture. Trade sanctions require a stiff upper lip and backbone, something that the majority of countries do not have. Fair trade is required and while the 'carrot' approach may work sometimes the 'stick' approach also has to be used. If you want to stop fentanyl from being produced in China you have to deal with the fact that the majority of world's antibiotics and other required drugs like Heparin are also being produced (almost exclusively) in China. You also have to have control of the goods that are coming into your country.

China is currently one of the leading trading super-power and certainly wants to become the number one world trade super-power. Printing some US stamps (or even producing enough fentanyl to kill the population of the world a few times over) is hardly on their radar in the grand scheme of becoming a world trading super power. Financially these things represent a very tiny percentage of the annual trade for the CCP.

So the solution is to get those that are cashing in (and basically being 'owned' by the CCP) on Chinese trade to be willing to lose some of that wealth and power via penalizing trade sanctions. If we keep empowering the same people who have vested interests in Chinese trade, whether it is through the ballet box or filling our houses with Chinese produced goods via Amazon, then we can do the reverse and stop empowering them. Demanding fair trade and a willingness to change our buying habits would go a long way to getting CCP to behave.

Alternatively, we can sit around and complain about the issue and spend incredible amounts of time and money chasing a 'ground up' approach that will never succeed.
Don

Very well put, Don
thoroughly agree.
I vote Don for President.

This is getting a little removed from stamps, but I disagree. At least as it relates to counterfeit stamps. Arresting the many US based distributors will definitely reduce the loss. Unlike illegal drugs, many (or most) buyers of counterfeit stamps see them selling on the web and ebay, and assume they are legitimate. Reducing the easy availability, will reduce the usage

Prosecute one buyer, give them the max five years in prison and publicize the heck out of it. Never happen but it would work.

Because that works for drug dealers, right? We don't have any of those.

The biggest problem about arresting the resellers of counterfeit stamps is proving one element of the crime, that the sellers knew the items sold were counterfeit. I may know it, the sellers may know it, you may know it, the authorities may know it; but can it be proven beyond a reasonable doubt (standard for US Criminal Courts)? That is a difficult proof. Additionally, for the Feds, loss needs to normally be north of $20K to send a seller to court. Individual sellers doing that volume are not common on digital platforms.

One solution would be to return the BEP high quality engraved stamp production, rather than on presses with processes which are available to anyone with the money to buy such a press. However, even the BEP is having difficulty staying ahead of the forgers of US currency.

Demonetizing all stamp issues some 60 days after issue would help reduce the sales window of the fakes.

At least the suggestion is not to do away with postage stamps and use meters only.

Of course none of those three suggested methods will happen.

If we want to solve it like drugs we would make counterfeiting legal, so it's not quite the same thing.

Amphetamines flavored stamps maybe.

A few things about the above comment.

I am not talking about dealers, I am talking about users.

We do realize that drugs and stamps have little in common when it comes to why people purchase them?

While stamp collecting can be addictive I maintain that the reason for knowingly using counterfeit modern postage is because you are trying to save money or put one over on "the man".

People do not "use" stamps to alter their reality either.

Conclusion: Stamps and drugs are vastly different.

If a small business or other end user of counterfeit postage gets five years in prison and everyone with a pulse hears the story the market for said product will shrink.

Lets face it though. We would be talking about probation and a fine, not three hots and a cot. Still gets the message across.

Won't of course happen. Career felons are being released the same day they are popped.

"One solution would be to return the BEP high quality engraved stamp production"

Never going to happen for so many reasons. The BEP was dumped for a reason. The BEP and USPS did not get along with each other. The BEP cost more than the private printers for the same printing processes the private printers use, and you are proposing a more expensive printing process (and does the BEP still have any stamp presses left?). Engraving might make it easier for USPS and collectors to tell real and counterfeits apart, but the public would still be clueless.

"Demonetizing all stamp issues some 60 days after issue would help reduce the sales window of the fakes."

So you want they to come up with a new definitive design every 2 moths? And peoples' stamp buying habits would have to change - who is going to buy a book of 20 stamps when most of them would become invalid before they had a need to use them? Who wants to go to the PO once every 2 months to buy 2 stamps to mail the one bill they can't pay online?

The first 90-year old grandmother on a fixed income who is trying to save money on postage that hits prison and the USPS suffers a massive load of terrible publicity. It'll never happen.

Never going to happen. They created forever stamps for a reason.

The last time we demonetized stamps was in the 1860's in response to the Civil War. Stamps made since then are perfectly legitimate postage. Granted, not too many people are using stamps from the 1870's to mail a letter, but there ARE many people legitimately using stamps from the 1940's/50's/60's/etc. There is a long tradition in this country of knowing that the stamps you buy today will be good forever, whether at the rate printed, or at the current rate for Forever stamps.

That would be like punishing people with prescription drugs in the medicine cabinet in high-crime, high drug use neighborhoods.