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Why are so many people being hit with £5 fines for 'counterfeit' stamps?

thisismoney.co.uk

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Re: Why are so many people being hit with £5 fines for 'counterfeit' stamps?

#81

Post by lostlogin »

Dalewyn wrote: post #45
pard68 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I (an American) agree with your sentiment, it appears that the British royalty don't actually rely on tax money, but instead they keep 25% of the money that the royaly estate /makes/ and the other 75% goes to the British treasury. But I might be wrong. https://www.bbc.com/news/explainers-57559653

Also an American and I like the British (and also Japanese) royals. Benevolent monarchs are a cornerstone of serenity and sanity. And yes, I realize the irony as an American. I think on average Americans like the British royal family more than Britons do?

> Benevolent monarchs are a cornerstone of serenity and sanity.

So they are great until they aren’t, and then there is no mechanism to remove them.

Dictatorships are also good if you get a great leader.

Re: Why are so many people being hit with £5 fines for 'counterfeit' stamps?

#82

Post by mauvehaus »

duxup wrote: post #54
delichon wrote: post #15

If this is really about a fine for counterfeiting a stamp, isn't £5 astonishingly low? In the US that's a serious federal felony with up to five years in prison. https://puryearlaw.com/2015/12/27/federal-counterfeit-postag...

I knew a guy whose hobby was drawing fake stamps on envelopes and mailing them. He said someone eventually tracked him down and he was just told to stop doing it.

For today's lucky 10,000:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._S._G._Boggs

Re: Why are so many people being hit with £5 fines for 'counterfeit' stamps?

#83

Post by B1FF_PSUVM »

siva7 wrote: post #75
xnyan wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there are countries where it’s not a serious crime to counterfeit postage? I think the penalty is double (up to 10 years) in the United Kingdom for example.

Yes, there are plenty. A serious crime requires serious damage in some countries so a single counterfeit won't tick that bar.

'De minimis non curat lex', as those very practical Romans put it

Re: Why are so many people being hit with £5 fines for 'counterfeit' stamps?

#84

Post by defrost »

mauvehaus wrote: post #82
duxup wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I knew a guy whose hobby was drawing fake stamps on envelopes and mailing them. He said someone eventually tracked him down and he was just told to stop doing it.

For today's lucky 10,000: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._S._G._Boggs

Good article, worth the read.

This caught my eye:

    Boggs was first arrested for counterfeiting in England in 1986, and was successfully defended by the human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC & Mark Stephens and acquitted.
as the cases of Geoffrey Robertson are worth the rabbit hole, and the maintaining of transient accolades poses an update issue.

I'll leave the QC -> KC edit for others and wonder how many dated QC's are on wikipedia and whether a QC who died before the Queen remains a QC or becomes a post mortem KC ?

Re: Why are so many people being hit with £5 fines for 'counterfeit' stamps?

#85

Post by vinay427 »

dhosek wrote: post #80

What caught my attention was that the first-class mail rate in the UK is £1.35 which is about $1.70 at current exchange rates. In contrast, in the US a first-class stamp is $0.68 (I buy forever stamps in bulk so I was surprised to discover it had gotten that high). The USPS really is a bargain.

Yes, Royal Mail tends to be far more expensive than USPS for letters and smaller parcels, including internationally (e.g. UK to US costs far more than US to UK), but they have relatively reasonable pricing on medium-sized parcels in my experience.

It definitely is apparent which is the private company based on their pricing schemes, even besides the more consumer-facing UK Post Office locations that are almost entirely franchised and often operate as a small convenience store, etc.

Re: Why are so many people being hit with £5 fines for 'counterfeit' stamps?

#86

Post by justinclift »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #71
coldtea wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the US that's a serious federal felony with up to five years in prison. For counterfeiting _A_ stamp? I guess in the US even breathing the wrong way is probably a serious federal felony. Land of the free, and all that...

I doubt they ever prosecute anyone for counterfeiting a stamp, but if the law only forbid counterfeiting 100 stamps a counterfeiter would do 99 at a time.

... and it wouldn't be a crime, so what's the issue? :D

Re: Why are so many people being hit with £5 fines for 'counterfeit' stamps?

#87

Post by [deleted] »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #29
matthewmacleod wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Royal Mail and the Post Office are two separate organisations.

I am aware. It seems, regardless of institution, that no one at these levels of UK public good can take responsibility. It is as if the apathy has been institutionalized in a declining nation state. Where and how do find someone who cares and the authority to do something about it? If you told me yet another UK institution had systemic issues (NHS?), I would not be surprised, and that is very sad. It should not be th…

[deleted]

Re: Why are so many people being hit with £5 fines for 'counterfeit' stamps?

#88

Post by justinclift »

chrisjj wrote: post #21
toast0 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article, sounds like the recipient can pay the fine and get the mail, or not pay the fine and not get the mail. Maybe it'll get returned to sender, for insufficient postage? Maybe it'll be destroyed?

It is not a fine. It is a fee for optional delivery.

Ugh. It's kind of blackmail then. :(

"Pay us $ (even though legally you don't have to), otherwise we'll be keeping and/or destroying your stuff".

Re: Why are so many people being hit with £5 fines for 'counterfeit' stamps?

#89

Post by coldtea »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #71
coldtea wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the US that's a serious federal felony with up to five years in prison. For counterfeiting _A_ stamp? I guess in the US even breathing the wrong way is probably a serious federal felony. Land of the free, and all that...

I doubt they ever prosecute anyone for counterfeiting a stamp, but if the law only forbid counterfeiting 100 stamps a counterfeiter would do 99 at a time.

>if the law only forbid counterfeiting 100 stamps a counterfeiter would do 99 at a time.

And by the second batch they'd have counterfeited 198, so I fail to see the problem...

Re: Why are so many people being hit with £5 fines for 'counterfeit' stamps?

#90

Post by justinclift »

oarsinsync wrote: post #56
Dalewyn wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also an American and I like the British (and also Japanese) royals. Benevolent monarchs are a cornerstone of serenity and sanity. And yes, I realize the irony as an American. I think on average Americans like the British royal family more than Britons do?

> Benevolent monarchs… The British royal family has veto power over parliament. They use this power to rewrite laws. Lots of this is well documented, but poorly publicised.

Pity they didn't stop Brexit, which would have been an actual good use of their veto power.
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