Counterfeit Stamps Pass Postal Scrutiny

Sounds good, except I used a credit card. Now it's starting to get complicated I'd guess that the clerk could have just substituted other sales, but the inventory gets a lot harder to reconcile. In addition, I have sales receipts itemizing the sales, which, in turn, go into the inventory reconciliation. Not as simple as it sounds in the end. Now if the manager is substituting in counterfeits, there's a little bit more control. Hard to say in that case.

Alan

Another take on this: If the Post Office sold the stamps, does that make them legitimate varieties?

Why worry about US sellers, now you can buy directly from the printers in China. Screen shot was taken today.



Why pay face when you can get it at 25.93% of face and save $400.00 off of face. The fake stamps are worthless, but what a buy.

Edit: Added missing letter.

In my mind, the solution is simple (not necessarily easy): prohibit any and all discounts on Forever postage, period.

Legitimate discounts or otherwise, make it a crime to sell Forever postage for below whatever face value is at the time, and publicize the heck out of that.

Should be easy to do, as I get flyers from USPS all the time advertising job openings with them. Just print up a quick flyer to educate people.

Think about it: very few reasons that anyone would be looking to offload at a discount an asset that will keep its value as the price of Forever postage keeps climbing.

USPS should advertise that logic and make it very clear that 1) discount Forever stamps are therefore likely bogus, and 2) anyone caught using these will face steep fines, jail time, whatever.

At the end of the day, the scammers are printing this garbage out in China and shipping it over because there's a market for it.

Some people knowingly buy bogus stuff and pass it through the mails, but I bet a lot of people would just assume that postage occasionally goes on sale like most other things. A blanket advertising campaign could help solve this problem; I bet a lot of people currently buying this crap on Facebook Marketplace or ebay or whatever would think twice before doing it again.

Sure, perhaps a smaller market might spring up to counterfeit high-value denominated issues from the early 2000s or the like, but most non-philatelists aren't conditioned to use postage that requires doing math to get to the current first-class rate.

Well, amongst the people who would wish to offload an "asset" at discount would include stamp collectors and their heirs.

True, but that's a pretty small group of people, relatively speaking. Given the dire financial straits USPS is in and the scale of the counterfeiting problem, inconveniencing a small number of people to hopefully keep the USPS in business a little longer seems like a worthwhile trade-off to me.

If a bona fide collector's heirs are looking to offload a bunch of Forever stamps because Grandpa accumulated way more stamps than they'll ever use, they could probably flout the law and sell to friends, family, whatever for some cash.

At least those on the buying end would know that the stamps are (hopefully) legit.

The simple solution which will 100% stop use of counterfeits is to stop stamp use on mail. This can be done by stopping issuing any stamps, demonetizing all forever stamps in 60 days, and all other valid postage with stated denomination in 120 days.

Don't like that? Then:

Stop all stamp production, demonetize all forever stamps in 60 days and immediately add a $12 surcharge on mail that uses stamps. Set a 10 year date to demonetize all stated value stamps at which time the $12 surcharge stops as no stamped mail will be accepted.. Allow issuance of daily encoded meter strips valid for 7 days following issue. People will be moved away from stamp use.

"In my mind, the solution is simple (not necessarily easy): prohibit any and all discounts on Forever postage, period."

Did you really think this one thru?? The counterfeiters would be happy to get face for their fakes. It would reduce theor sales, but not eliminate them as some people would rather order off ebay than got to a PO.

I recently purchased multiple Forever stamps and upon receipt, found that they were fake. I purchased another batch of Forever stamps, whom the seller said he had tested with a UV light.

I shined a 395nm UV light on the stamps in the photo. It's my understanding that 300nm is ideal. I enhanced the photo and I see some green hues on some stamps, and none on the others. Do you think these stamps are fake or real?

Also, is there a list of stamp designs where counterfeits are known to exist? If so, a list would be most appreciated!

The Scott U.S. Specialized Catalogue includes a section for counterfeits.
Given the recent inundation of such stamps in the marketplace, perhaps this section will eventually become a separate catalogue!

I never saw the logic in or agreed with that decision. It is to the point where most of the counterfeits are so ubiquitous the value is nil. Not like they are hard to find!

The listings for counterfeits start with those produced in the 1800s. Most are rare to find, only in the issues produced in the last few years has the number of examples for each design ballooned. Today a modern collection of forgeries postally used on examined mail (registered, certified, express, insured, C.O.D. matter over 13 ounces and the like) would be quite collectible and worthy of pricing. Some of my prized modern covers are registered covers with multiple examples of counterfeits paying part of the postage.

I thought that my comment was self-explanatory as referencing the subject of this entire thread, modern Forever stamp counterfeits. My apologies if I could have, should have been clearer on that point.

Again, given the amount of these counterfeits being sold and used and the ease of obtaining them, it would seem that they are hardly scarce.




How are we defining "modern"?

Sure, some amount of sales would continue. Some folks like to buy stamps at the grocery store because it's convenient. Some will order on FB Marketplace, ebay, whatever for the same reason.

But I think it's reasonable to surmise that most of the folks who buy Forever stamps from from counterfeiters do so because they're attracted by the discounts.

Prohibiting (and potentially criminalizing) discounts on Forever stamps wouldn't deprive counterfeiters of all of their revenue, but it would take most of it away. Something is better than nothing, and that sounds better than the alternative, which is...




I'm afraid that this is where we're eventually headed. At some point the volume of first class mail will decline (and the level of counterfeiting will increase) to the point that the only viable path forward is to get rid of stamps and go with those pay-as-you-go codes that can be written on envelopes (and countries like Sweden and the Netherlands have already started rolling them out).

No, criminalizing discounted Forever stamps won't solve the counterfeiting problem entirely. Yes, some collectors of mint US postage (and their heirs) will be inconvenienced. But given the extent of the problem and the way the trend lines are heading, I think it could ultimately protect the continued usage of stamps on envelopes - something I think we all here can agree is a wonderful thing.