Re-Sealed Stamp Packets

Are re-sealed stamp packets a widespread problem and a concern for consumers?

I remember many years ago, unscrupulous sellers would open up packs of sports cards, re-seal them and sell them as unopened.

I ask because I recently saw a photo an annual stamp packet the USPS issues for each year for sale by an internet seller that was advertised an unopened and it indeed looked sealed, but what was unusual about it was that some of the visible stamps were already in the black mounts and missing surrounding margin paper (selvage). I compared the photo of the stamp packet to other identical year sealed ones for sale and the same visible stamps in all the other ones had margin paper (selvage) surrounding them and lots of empty black mounts, which got my suspicious that the unopened one where the stamps were already mounted could have been re-sealed. Is this a logical suspicion?

Is it easy for an unscrupulous seller to re-seal or re-shrinkwrap stamp packet?

Maybe the photo was for display only and you receive a sealed packet.

rogdcam: The photo in the listing was not a stock or altered photo. It was the photo of the actual item for sale.

What are your perspectives on the frequency of this problem in the stamp industry whether individuals or dealers)?

I am saying that it may have been an actual photo but not of the one you would receive.

If it was not resealed when received get a refund.

I don't see this much since there is little to be gained by such behavior.

How would you know if it was re-sealed? You can't on older packs of sports cards.

Some valuable stamps could be missing if it was opened and re-sealed.

Would it not be your first enquiry, to the vendor?
Just a polite query on the mounts, would / should satisfy
your opinion, without jumping to a conclusion.

I did ask the vendor, but never received a reply. Not jumping to any conclusions, just thinking critically that it might be a possibility because back when I used to collect sports cards, it was a big problem.

Searching and resealing sports cards may be profitable because the contents of a pack of cards is (pseudo)random and not known at the time of purchase. An unscrupulous dealer can search for all of the good cards and replace them with commons, and the purchaser of the packs is none the wiser and difficult to prove they were searched. As far as they're concerned they just got a bad pack.

However, doesn't a year set just contain all of the stamps issues in the year? You know exactly what you're getting. If somebody was opening them up and taking out stamps, you would know as soon as you bought it, and dealer would not last long. It would be more akin to (in sports card world) taking out the key cards of a factory sealed complete set and selling it as still factory sealed--probably has happened before, but not really a common problem which you hear about frequently.

Well there's your second problem.
I'd avoid and move on.
Of course you would be covered by both Paypal and ebay
if the goods were not as advertised.

If you can't know if a packet (of sports cards or stamps) was resealed . . . then I'm completely confused by your question. How then would anyone know if what they had bought had been opened and then resealed? A lot of year packs that I've purchased were never actually sealed even by the postal service that issued them. They are completely open little folders with the stamps put into open-topped rows of plastic like Vario pages. Maybe a stamp was removed and then replaced before the year pack was sold? How would anyone know? And why would they care, at least if they received all the stamps in good condition? I guess I'm confused by the whole premise here.