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

Post by 1letterunixname » Fri, Mar 29, 2024, 7:05 AM UTC

2-3-7-43-1807 wrote: post #106

Chris_Newton wrote: post #91

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 be…

well ... it's the royal mail which happens to be identical to the royal mail from the post office scandal. that's about the reassurance you got to expect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal

Post by 1letterunixname » Fri, Mar 29, 2024, 7:19 AM UTC

taylorfinley wrote: post #59

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?

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

Post by retube » Fri, Mar 29, 2024, 7:44 AM UTC

2-3-7-43-1807 wrote: post #106

Chris_Newton wrote: post #91

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 be…

well ... it's the royal mail which happens to be identical to the royal mail from the post office scandal. that's about the reassurance you got to expect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal

Post by NeoTar » Fri, Mar 29, 2024, 8:07 AM UTC

vinay427 wrote: post #85

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 entire…

Post by ThePowerOfFuet » Fri, Mar 29, 2024, 8:12 AM UTC

nikdoof wrote: post #17

nextos wrote: post #2

"It is unclear at what point these ‘counterfeit’ stamps have entered circulation, and their source — or whether they are genuine and Royal Mail’s scanning technology is at fault." Given the precedents from the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal , I think the second option is plausible. My experience in the UK is that dysfunctional organizations try to hide issues by bullying their own customers…

In the past six months I've had four letters returned to me because they went through the sort/scanner upside down and used the sender address on the CN22 as the destination address. I'd put money on it being a failure of technology.