Another Counterfeit Seller

Here is what I saw when I reached the previous post to this one I'm adding.
(Ads from alibaba offering U.S. forever coils...)

sorry for prior post, it seems every discussion website has its mysterious method to getting a relevant image associated with a posting.
(On prior post I used the Upload Image feature for first time. But no evidence of image could I find in my message once posted.)
So here I am again and trying to study better the dozens of widgets surrounding this typing box, maybe I will find the hint that lets me add image directly next to message.

So, found the Image Tutorial... all instructed I seemed to have followed (image size has been about 120kb), until I got to last sentence:
"The code to have the image appear in your post will be added to the post editor box."

Never noticed or see such a critter... maybe if I repeat Upload Image now that I've typed all this, something will change... hold on please.

OK, I see what happened... like so many briefly designed webpage tasks, when one "skips" a step after completing some, there's no warning that you are about to "exit in mid-task," so I was none the wiser of later widget-clicking required to complete the task... well, it seems like it's been completed now.

We now return you to the evidence I was trying to show, on what Alibaba ads were shown when reaching end of this thread about U.S. counterfeits, heh heh! QED.

The ads that are shown are 100% based upon the places that a user visits and/or their online 'marketing' profile which is maintained by one of about 5-6 huge data centers which maintain all our personal information. For example, if a person goes to porn sites and their profile contains information that is associated with porn; they will see porn ads.

So folks who might have gone to a site which sells discount/counterfeit postage, for any reason, will see these types ads not only on SCF but also on many other websites which use a banner ad service.

It is not a reflection of what SCF does or does not support.
Don

WOW! How can the USPS compete with these guys?

As a newbie, I'm constantly surprised by what I learn everyday. I've always thought of counterfeit stamps as bad for the philatelic from a philatelic perspective. Today I'm casually flipping through the Scott catalog (vol. 1), and I see that some counterfeit stamps are worth much more in value than the original stamp! Like an old Eisenhower stamp from the 70's. Original stamp has a catalog value of $0.25. Counterfeit version, $50! What gives?

It can be looked as Scott is incentivizing the marketplace for trading in this material. Some feel it is fine that a catalog publisher lists them, but assigning values crosses the line. Other folks might think it is an acceptable practice.
Don

It strikes me that counterfeits fall outside the scope of the Scott Catalog.

I've purchased from at least 40 counterfeit vendors on ebay. I turn them into the USPIS, but I'm not sure it matters. I posted the negative feedback on Astronsales which is shown in the original post. I have purchased from these (6) significant sellers and all forever stamps were fake: Astronsales - collect4everstamps - postcardnstamps - send-9860 - vanjim-0 - keeklai8

keeklai8 might be the biggest - I had my son buy from him as well and what he bought was fake. Everything is turned into PIS group. ebay removed all of my feedback on keeklai8 & collect4everstamps. Most of the listings are below normal sale pricing, but not below face.

If microprinting is present on the stamp, I've never seen the fakes match it. They literally type in with a normal font and rotate to match the original stamp. Shel Silverstein & Chinese New Year (Tiger shown) stamps are a example for this. The actual is blobbish "USPS" with no obvious font used...the fake is a nice normal typefont. I've attached pictures showing the comparison (I have an extensive set of pictures of forever fakes). In the pictures shown, the left is fake.

In the end, they can sell what they want, but when they include Scott #s in the listing, they are targeting collectors. It's a shame.

" ebay removed all of my feedback on keeklai8 & collect4everstamps. "

So ebay is not just turning a blind eye to the counterfeits, their are actually complicit.

On the top pair you show, the print quality of the one you say is the fake looks better than the one you say is real. Also the black lines look wider on the left one.

Yes. The fake is a true typed font, so better quality on every fake vs real microprinting that I have seen. The fakers (most people say they come out of China) use the same layered printing that USPS's vendors use, so they have to create each color separately. Here is another fake Silverstein, notice the white outline around the kid. This is the poorest fake I've seen. I have a fake Great Smokey Mountains Priority Mail Express that has the white outline as well. They are not even bothering to take the time to exactly line them up.

This issue has been well covered for the last few years including in this community. And I think we are well past wondering the source of the majority of these counterfeits; China. China has been documented as the source of a number of incoming counterfeits such as;


https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/local-...rfeit-stamps



https://www.uspis.gov/u-s-postal-in...feit-postage





The 'tip of the iceberg is covered here; 'Since 2021, CBP has intercepted and seized over 8.3 million counterfeit U.S. postage stamps...'
https://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/f...28508%29.pdf
It seems reasonable to assume that they are discovering only a tiny fraction of what is flowing in from off-shore.

In my opinion there are three possible levels for interdiction.
Stop the source with trade talks. I doubt this will never happen and feel it is OUR fault, we keep voting in politicians (all parties) who are making millions with influence from foreign entities. I am unsure how we can whine about this issue when we are the ones who keep putting these people in office.)

Stop the distribution chain
Difficult and costly (time and money). This tends to be a 'whack-a-mole' situation, there is no way to police the entire global internet. If the US shuts down eBay/Amazon the online sales will simply revery to other venues. I doubt that chasing down counterfeiters distributing out of Kathmandu is going to be feasible, especially if they just reemerge the next week in Kyrgyzstan.

Stop the demand
Fairly easy but stamp collectors will not like it, stop using pre-printed postage stamps. But this issue become visible enough we could well be pushing the USPS towards this solution.
I am unsure that anything will prevent greed by people who cannot resist "XX% off of face".
I assume that the majority of these counterfeit stamp are being used on personal mail, I think the majority are used by mass mailers. I also suspect that these same mass mailers are behind some of the online sales. It would make sense that if they are already buying counterfeits for their primary business (mass mailing service) selling them online would be an additional profit center.

Don

serf - I wasn't just referring to the quality of the microprinted USPS but to the entire image you showed.
US postage too.
As for the white outline, that is just a minor color misregistration that can be found at times on real The quality of the fakes in general has gotten much better than they used to be.

I believe that the stamp community shouldn't be as concerned about counterfeit stamps, since it is ultimately the USPS (US government) job to police its product. The stamp community *should be* very vocal in communicating with collectors about counterfeit Forever stamps. It isn't just "below face", they are regularly priced above face on ebay and marketed using collectors teams (things like Scott # & CV). I'll admit, I'm not on Facebook, Instagram or Etsy where I've heard that the sale of these is rampant. All of my experience is on ebay.

"I believe that the stamp community shouldn't be as concerned about counterfeit stamps"

If you don't have a known real example to use as a reference to compare to, the average collector can not tell a counterfeit from a real.

That's why we need the Scott's specialized catalog of counterfeits (or equivalent), including detailed images and comparisons like the ones posted here by serf_tide. I also believe it should be published online for free for everyone, collector or not, to benefit from the important information. I am leaning on the side of not creating "catalog values" for the modern fakes as collectibles.

I think my dad recently bought (possibly) counterfeit stamps to mail all of their Christmas cards. We were talking recently about how the postage rates are going up to 68 cents soon, and he said he bought his last batch of Forever stamps from a place that was selling them at about half face value and they were so cheap "because the store had invested in a ton of Forever stamps when the rates were a lot lower, knowing that the postage rates would keep going up, and that's why they could sell them at below the current face value rates".

Sounds like a novel story, but he didn't do the math to realize that these "stamps" when they first came out probably had a face value of 47 cents, and any reasonable investor would want to sell them today at 66 cents to make a profit. Not 33 cents.

I'm surprised the Post Office hasn't pushed any sort of public service media campaign to warn customers of the proliferation of fakes, and amplifying their earlier announcement "we will throw away any letters that have fake stamps". My dad was completely unaware of any possibility that these stamps sold at half price could be fake - and he is very media literate and he was the one who got me started in stamp collecting. A little bit of money spent on public service announcements (aren't those free anyway?) could go a long way at reducing the consumer demand, at least raising awareness and getting people to think twice before falling for an offer that sounds too good to be true.