USPS To "Abandon" Items With Counterfeit Postage

Sounds like this is going into effect 1 April. The USPS made a point of saying in the Federal Register notice that they are exempt from the notice and comment requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act but will take comments because they are nice.

https://www.federalregister.gov/doc...feit-postage

The reason for not going down the "postage due" route makes sense. By the time the recipient gets the mail the services have already been rendered. How many people that have already paid someone for shipping are going to not be outraged at having to pay a second time when the mail gets to them? That would be a mess.

Another thorny question is how will the credit card companies and others deal with the chargebacks and disputes? Imagine the volume of ebay shipments that get "disposed of".

It should just be returned to sender like any other piece of mail without sufficient postage. Maybe add a hand-stamp that says "The USPS does not sell discount postage. If you have purchased discount postage online, you have probably been scammed."

There's no reason to change a system that has worked for decades.

If you read the USPS notice they say that returning to sender is not an option because most of the return addresses are fake or the sender uses someone else's address.

That logically makes no sense. If most usages are by people unwittingly buying counterfeit postage, why would they use bogus return addresses? Or is the implication that the counterfeit postage is being used by scam outfits?

The logical contortions of this reeks of "well we gotta look like we're doing SOMETHING" while ignoring the practicalities of the underlying problem.

I feel that several comments here are over thinking the issue. The notice says that counterfeit *mailings* are the key problem, that is, mail pieces with both counterfeit postage and a fake address. Most likely these are coming from Chinese merchants or their domestic US forwarding agents. The USPS is not focusing on the inadvertent use of counterfeit stamps by well-meaning mailers; their evidence and experience are that intentionally fraudulent mail is the problem. Further, the DMM apparently had no provision for how to treat mail that has fake postage, as opposed to missing postage. The notice closes that legal loophole and puts fraudulent mailers on notice that their mailings will be at risk. Finally, it says that USPS *may* open and destroy these mailings, not that it will or must.

I don't think the average Joe or Josephine has anything to worry about. They're just laying the legal groundwork to seize fraudulent mailings of high volume, professional operators.

Fair enough if that is the actual intent, but that doesn't mean that this new regulation can't be abused or exploited for nefarious purposes, and the sender (apparently) has no recourse if their parcel gets confiscated.

That's a problem.

older postage is probably safe. It's the more current postage which is easily copied. USPS has used security printing with micro-printing technique. I think that this could be improved & with little published fanfare. (hey, they still counterfeit paper money with all the new designs & counter measures.) I would hope the USPS Inspectional services is going after the 'discount' sellers by back-tracking the social media advertisers. & they can put 'stop orders ' on suspect discounters & return (unopened) mail directed to them.

What does that mean a fake address? Why send fake letters to fake addresses? What's the point they're driving at? I would understand perhaps using fake postage to mail to real addresses whereby Chinese sellers on Amazon send items paid for by bot accounts to real people so they can drum up good reviews and the like, but what do you mean high volume professional operators of fraudulent mailings? Would commemoratives be hit less hard than definitives? Who can say

Fake RETURN addresses.

The USA does not seem to have an issue with their currency being counterfeit.

"Just add a POSTAGE DUE sticker/stamp and collect the money on delivery ."

Why should I pay for the postage as the receiver when it was the sender that was either too greedy or too stupid and used a counterfeit? It should be RTS and they should collect more than the postage due, perhaps double to make up for the fact that there is a cost to the PO to collect the money. It is the buyers of the counterfeits that need to feel the pain so they stop buying them.

They are concerned and always have been. When currency goes through the Federal Reserve system via banks, it is examined. This used to be done by eye. I knew former employees of The Fed that praised "the ladies" (apparently all women) that examined currency with amazing accuracy.

All the businesses, banks and post offices in the US that use checker pens and machines are basically paranoid; getting a forgery is really rare. A forgery in the US is most likely to be a fiver since those are never checked. Plus, those methods are easily beaten. Inattentive clerks are the worst problem. Would you take a blurry bill printed on typing paper or a dollar bill with "20"s from a $20 bill taped to the corners on one side? I've seen it done several times.

That said, US currency outside of the US is rife with excellent to poor counterfeits. Travelers are probably the source of any counterfeits found in the US. Domestic forgers make lousy "product" and are easily caught.

"The reason for not going down the "postage due" route makes sense. By the time the recipient gets the mail the services have already been rendered. "

Whether this is true depends on where the counterfeit is caught

"their evidence and experience are that intentionally fraudulent mail is the problem."

Fraudsters knowingly using counterfeit postage certainly could be a significant problem, but I can't believe that all the counterfeits sold on ebay and social media is also not a significant problem.