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

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

#91

Post by Chris_Newton »

I don’t know whether I should post this as it may be an ongoing case, but not so long ago I sent off my old stamps to the official “swap out” service to have them replaced by the new barcoded ones. A few days later, I did indeed receive equivalent new stamps back — in an envelope that had clearly been tampered with, being roughly cut open all down one side and having the paperwork accompanying the stamps obviously bent and having been pushed back in awkwardly.

I immediately contacted Royal Mail via their online system and noted the problem and my concern that this could mean the stamps had been replaced with fakes before reaching me. I asked if there was any way I could verify that they were legitimate before I used them.

A few days later, I received a bizarre email back from someone at Royal Mail, saying they were sorry to hear that I wasn’t happy with their response (what response?!) and can certainly understand my frustration but we are not able to progress any further (than what?!), along with various other words that seemed designed to try to appease me while not actually saying anything of substance, and a recommendation to contact some other part of Royal Mail, which I may yet do.

It was a surreal experience, but having been prompted to do it by seeing several reports of people who’d sent their stamps in and either never received the replacements or had problems with them, and having received such an obviously tampered delivery, with the entire process from collecting the stamps from my local post box to delivering the replacements to my home being under the control of Royal Mail, I can’t say I was particularly reassured by the response so far.

I haven’t yet tried to send anything using the new stamps…

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

#92

Post by lostlogin »

jsheard wrote: post #35
Loughla wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You can probably guess - older demographics lean towards supporting the monarchy, younger demographics skew towards not being fans. There's a loose consensus that the royal family is a net positive for the countries finances, but I believe that involves some creative accounting where all tourism to royal-adjacent properties and the surrounding areas is attributed entirely to those properties still being owned by a li…

> I believe that involves some creative accounting where all tourism to royal-adjacent properties and the surrounding areas is attributed entirely to those properties still being owned by a living monarch rather than the state

That argument is a tricky one (as you point out). The French palaces have a fair few visitors and there are no living royals to block access. The family don’t need to be in the castle.

It’s ludicrous as they are also my royal family - and I’m in New Zealand.

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

#93

Post by rvba »

Few things come to my mind:

1) There is a general batch of stamps and also a second batch, that is used to exchange "old" for "new" stamps. The second batch either contains duplicate numbers, or is not activated in the post system at all -> so those get marked as counterfeit

2) The barcode system has no error correction -> the scanners just read the codes "as is", without any sort of error correction / verification if they were read correctly. The incorrect numbers (wrong reading) are then marked as counterfeit

3) Incorrect readings vs some generic "list of stamps that were used" -> fake (?) duplicates marked by the system.

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

#94

Post by duxup »

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

I feel like a stamp… little different than money.

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

#96

Post by pigeons »

B1FF_PSUVM wrote: post #83
siva7 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I was going to reply, "Unum ex multis dica". It's always interesting when two people can see the same thing and come to opposite conclusions!

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

#97

Post by kuschku »

Leynos wrote: post #65
taylorfinley wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The barcode in the article decodes to "JGB S11221017031011395940006622112101 BC046285E760466C01" if anyone fancies having a crack at making a stamp keygen.

I didn't actually realize one could fit so much into such a small barcode. I do wonder if this now means it is in theory possible to track items sent by letter post.

It is. Other european mail services, e.g. DHL, have been offering tracking for every new stamp for a while now.

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

#98

Post by 1jbdg »

DaSHacka wrote: post #76
jimnotgym wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes me feel like sending a load of them to the Daily Mail...

You kid, but I imagine this will quickly be abused by bad actors to harass victims of online doxxing as ordering pizzas and (in more serious cases) swatting is.

You just don’t accept the letter, nothing to pay then

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

#99

Post by sentientslug »

andrewaylett wrote: post #39

The stamps have "unique" codes, but a genuine counterfeit must still have a code -- and to be useful it must duplicate the code on a real stamp. If the counterfeit gets used first, the stamp is marked as spent, and when the unlucky purchaser of the real stamp tries to use it, they're told theirs is "counterfeit" because it's flagged as "used" in the database?

If that was true it wouldn’t be marked as counterfeit, the other checkbox would be marked for “already used”

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

#100

Post by Dylan16807 »

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.

Where did "at a time" come from?
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