Royal Mail Customers Told Old Stamps Are Fake As They Attempt To Swap For New Digital Versions

Post Office customers' fury after Royal Mail tells them their old stamps are FAKE as they attempt to swap for new digital versions
Old stamps became invalid on Tuesday and are replaced by barcode versions
Some Britons are said to have been told that their old stamps are 'not genuine'
By MARK DUELL


Some Royal Mail customers attempting to swap old stamps bought from the Post Office for new digital versions are allegedly being told their purchases are fakes.

Old stamps became invalid on Tuesday, with anyone using them now facing a £1.10 surcharge - meaning new stamps with barcodes are now the only ones allowed.

The Royal Mail launched a free 'Swap Out' scheme meaning old stamps can be exchanged for their new equivalents by posting them to 'Freepost Swap Out'.

Officials confirmed that Special Stamps featuring pictures and Christmas stamps without a barcode will continue to be valid and do not need to be swapped out.

But some Britons are said to have been informed that their old stamps – which they bought from branches of the Post Office – are fraudulent or 'not genuine'.

The Post Office said it receives its postage stamps direct from Royal Mail's 'secure printers'
Other customers have claimed that even the new stamps - also bought from Post Office branches - have also been labelled fake, reported the Daily Telegraph.

What Royal Mail stamps are no longer valid?
Royal Mail has now added barcodes to all of its regular postage stamps.

Old-style regular stamps without a barcode are no longer valid for postage, as of Tuesday (July 31).


The stamps that have changed feature the profile of the late Queen Elizabeth II on a plain-coloured background.

However, Special Stamps with pictures on and Christmas stamps without a barcode will continue to be valid and don't need to be swapped out.

Old stamps can be exchanged for new barcoded versions through the 'Stamp Swap Out' scheme. To swap out stamps, people can complete a form, include their stamps and send it free of charge to 'Freepost Swap Out'.

The newspaper revealed it had seen 40 examples of customers claiming that old or new stamps bought from Post Offices or the Royal Mail website were 'invalid'.

It cited an example of customer Susan Harrison, 60, in Hartlepool, County Durham, who sent off eight old stamps bought from a Post Office counter in a WH Smith store to be swapped.

However, a few weeks later Royal Mail sent her a letter claiming the stamps could not be switched because they had 'already been used or are not genuine'.

She told the Telegraph: 'I'm gobsmacked. If you can't buy stamps in a post office without them being counterfeit then where can you buy them?'

Which? consumer law expert Lisa Webb has urged Royal Mail to investigate, saying it is 'unacceptable for recipients to be wrongly charged for stamps that have been bought legitimately from reputable retailers'.

She told MailOnline: 'It's in Royal Mail's interests to investigate as a priority any issues reported with its new stamp barcode system.

'Anyone who believes they have been wrongly charged for stamps marked as counterfeit should raise it with Royal Mail and the company must ensure that any customers who encounter problems with the new system are not left out of pocket.'

The new stamps were introduced with barcodes so they can be used with the Royal Mail app. Officials also hope they will improve efficiency and security.

The new stamps were first introduced in February last year and the deadline to use old stamps was originally January 31, 2023 - but an extra six-month grace period was then added until July 31.

A Post Office spokesman told MailOnline today: 'Stamps are available to buy from a number of different sources.

The Royal Mail's website shows what postage stamps are now invalid - and others that are not

'Customers who buy stamps at Post Offices are given an itemised receipt.

'We take any allegation of fake stamps at our branches seriously and will always require a receipt as proof of purchase before we can investigate.

'As part of this, any alleged fake stamp needs to be double checked by Royal Mail to verify the status of the stamp.'

The Royal Mail launched a free 'Swap Out' scheme meaning old stamps can be exchanged

And a Royal Mail spokesman told MailOnline: 'We encourage any customer who believes they have been incorrectly surcharged to send the stamps they have remaining to us.

'It is important that we can investigate and determine whether the stamps are genuine, as well as understand exactly where they were purchased.

'Barcoded stamps have been in use since February 2022 and each barcode is unique.

'This uniqueness enables our machines to check the validity of stamps and to identify barcodes that have been through the network before.

'If one of these stamps is showing as previously used it may suggest that the stamp has been reproduced by a counterfeiter.

'If a stamp is identified by our machines as counterfeit, it will also be individually checked by a member of our team before the recipient is asked to pay a surcharge.'

There is no suggestion that postmasters are selling fake stamps in their Post Offices.

But the news comes nearly a decade after the Post Office Horizon IT scandal from 2000 until 2014 when more than 700 subpostmasters were prosecuted based on information from the accounting system, but wrongly accused of theft, fraud and false accounting.

In 2019 a judge ruled the system contained a number of 'bugs, errors and defects' and there was a 'material risk' that shortfalls in Post Office branch accounts were in fact caused by it. Many subpostmasters have since had convictions overturned.

Does this mean that older decimal stamps such as, for example, 1971-2000 years, are no longer allowed to be used? Just trying to decipher what this line means:

"However, Special Stamps with pictures on and Christmas stamps without a barcode will continue to be valid and don't need to be swapped out."

Correct, but see the Royal Mail web site for details

I wonder if there is a way for someone not living in the UK to swap out unused postage? I have a huge pile of unused UK postage but am over in Canada. I had debated just selling it to a UK collector or dealer or trading for unused Canada but now I don't know how this is affected…

Interesting change

I did a bit of reading on other sites as the Royal Mail one is not clear and it looks like this really just applies to the Machin style and not the commemorative style.

The Machin stamps and regional stamps, both Machin-type and pictorial, are no longer valid for postage. Other decimal stamps remain valid.

see pararaph 28

https://www.royalmail.com/sites/roy...ber-2022.pdf

Reading all this makes me feel EXCITED for the ensuing confusion that will occur here in the states once the USPS goes this direction.....

In my experience, this has been straightforward. I sent off a large quantity of Machins and regionals, and received replacements reasonably quickly. If the US goes down this route, the lack of a single definitive design will make for a little more fun.

Did you have any decimal Wildings to swap?

The reproductions with decimal values that came in miniature sheets? No - I'd already have used them for postage.

Yes, and stamp books. I wonder whether Royal Mail would exchange them for barcode stamps as they categorised them as definitives. Or would they still accept them, because they think they are special stamps?

I sent my stamps to swap under the scheme and it was a quick successful transaction like yours GeoffHa

I sent two batches of stamps for swapping and got the new ones back very quickly with no quibbles.

As much of a fustercluck that the USPS is, there is absolutely no way such an invalidation/demonetization of postage could effectively be accomplished here in the USA. Postal clerks cannot recognize what stamps are genuine or not to begin with. And don't even go down the road of the alphabet denominated stamps; that makes their heads explode.

Has there been a demonetization of postage here in the USA since 1861? That's the last I can recall.