Forever Stamps On Ebay...

What is with all these sellers who seem to have an inexhaustible supply of Forever stamps available at less than face? Are they printing it, stealing it? Maybe they make it up on volume

*** Edited by Staff to clarify topic title. Titles are important! ***

Well, that is strange.

Maybe there's a way. I don't remember the postage rates but suppose I bought 20 Forever stamps in 2005, and 20 in 2010. Then, if I sold the 2010 stamps at the 2005 rates and kept the 2005 stamps which would have appreciated to the 2010 rate, I would still have the same amount of postage so, technically I would not have lost any value. If I could sell the 2005 stamps at a slight premium over current rates, I might even make a little.

It seems an overly complicated way to make a few cents! My guess is they are just fishing for positive feedback to boost their feedback score.

"It seems an overly complicated way to make a few cents! My guess is they are just fishing for positive feedback to boost their feedback score."

Don't think so. These sellers have an inexhustable supply of forever stamps. If they are selling them for 10% less than face it is costing them $4 for each positive feedback. There are cheaper way of doing that!!

Careful on these. A few years ago on ebay a couple of sellers were doing this and after a investigation many found to be stolen from USPS. Not to say this is the same but for awhile they had many of these lots selling on ebay just like this.
Of course maybe someone thought they would make a investment and purchased a large lot years back.

almost as bad as buyers offering 50 cents on the dollar for unused stamps.
My guess is.....corporate theft and reselling

EBays - Errors, Freaks and Oddities. Where is this INEXHAUSTIBLE supply of modern common coil imperf' pairs/strips, mis-cut panes and normal color variation coming from ?

The classification has degraded in the last 6 months, every man, his dog and cat have supplies to sell. Collector friends and I just give that classification a BIG miss now. Sorry, but there's too much junk.

In addition to what 1775mac has posted, I also read a recent news article on the USPS suggesting that they are carefully monitoring these ebay sales as well. There was a time (don't know if it's still a major problem or not) that counterfeit stamps were being produced and sold in local convenience stores in big cities (i.e. NY, Chicago, etc.) and unsuspecting consumers bought them without knowing and when they were applied to an envelope and mailed, the US Postal Inspectors came knocking on their door.

Not saying they are, but there is always the possibility that these could be surplus from illegal activity.

As with all ebay auctions, buyer beware!

A case in point:

http://reportyourcomplaint.com/coun...s-like-i-di/

Simple answer same with Canada is GLUE STICK material. There is a high percentage of postage that makes it through the system uncancelled and when sources such as mail rooms where high volumes of uncancelled material can be found the uncancelled stuff generally gets soaked off paper and resold minus gum at half price. Uk has acted counter measures for this with the new postage that once soaked loses the die cutouts rendering even un canceled postage useless.
I bought a mere 5 lbs of kiloware last year at $50 and counted over $100 in uncancelled material when I was done. Theres been many debates here and on other boards about the usage so that needs to be left alone but another example of major loses to any countries postal system.

These are unopened rolls of forever stamps.

As an aside, I get many letters with stamped envelopes to return a response in. When I don't respond (I know I should but don't), I frequently remove the unused stamps and then soak them off and glue them on my outgoing mail. Lately the Post Office has been hassling me about it. Returned two of my letters. Not sure what to do, because my usage is 1000% legitimate.

There are a lot of ways to make a profit selling forever stamps below face.

Not all of them are necessarily legal or ethical practices but they're feasible at least.

I would imagine a few of them would be:

1. Purchase hordes for a lesser % of face than you plan to sell them. This should be pretty easy if you can get enough capital together to buy up large lots.

2. An unscrupulous business owner purchases a large number of stamps to use the receipts as a tax write-off only to turnaround and sell the stamps and collect the proceeds on his private ebay account thereby netting him a $1 tax credit for $0.10.

3. Unethical employees may abuse expense accounts and order more stamps than necessary while pocketing the extras.

"1. Purchase hordes for a lesser % of face than you plan to sell them. This should be pretty easy if you can get enough capital together to buy up large lots."

Hu? How do you buy large lots for less than face? I just bought seven 100 stamp unopened rolls for 90% of face (from two different sellers). After ebay and PayPal fees, and free shipping, sellers are netting probably 80% of face. Are they paying 75% of face? From whom?

Panda.Bear, your Tax Dept' will appreciate this knowledge. If your system is similar to ours the Dept' will spend $1000 gaining $10 as an example to other would be cheats and low life.

Very good posibility you are dealing with either stolen or most likely counterfeit US postage. In recent years counterfeitiers from both inside the US and from other countries have discovered the internet as a great way to merchandise their products. Postal counterfeits are a recognised subset for collector interests and the stories are facinating. In recent years excellent stamp counterfeits have been found connected to counterfeit currency that originated from N. Korea/China

I sell stamps that way, yet I don't steal them. I also sell 'glue stick' postage. the difference being, my glue stick postage are stamps that were stuck together then soaked.

What's the line in Hitch Hiker's Guide?

Arthur: Zaphod sold me this gun for LESS THAN COST PRICE. How can he afford to do that?
Ford: Oh, he sells an awful lot of them!

I wonder if some folks are buying up Forever stamps with their credit card for the points/miles and reselling them back for cash. You also see the stamps on Craigslist a lot. For awhile some folks were doing this with the Presidential Dollars until the Mint took steps to prevent it. The things people do to get a free or cheap airplane ticket.