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U.S. postal inspectors shut down website selling counterfeit postage labels

281 points · 169 comments · ilamont

  1. jamesjhare · · focus · HN ↗
    the lesson here is you do not fuck with the us postal inspector's service because they do not lose
    1. tonymet · · focus · HN ↗
      i'm reading the opposite interpretation. how did they miss this? how much fraud is still active? you have to assume it's 100x what they've identified
      1. 55555 · · focus · HN ↗
        If you look at page 12 here (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.uspsoig.gov&#x2F;sites&#x2F;default&#x2F;files&#x2F;reports&#x2F;2026-09&#x2F;25-072-r26.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.uspsoig.gov&#x2F;sites&#x2F;default&#x2F;files&#x2F;reports&#x2F;2026-09&#x2F;...) the USPS estimates 30,000,000 fraudulent labels are&#x2F;were used per month. The accused sold 5 million labels via Labelsbank.com over a ~2 year period (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20240326164928&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;labelsbank.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20240326164928&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;labelsban...). That&#x27;s ~208,000&#x2F;m so his scam would represent 0.7% of fraudulent labels.

        These numbers are rough but there you go. Your intuition is correct. Roughly 100X.

        1. tonymet · · focus · HN ↗
          general rule of them with anomaly detection. great work and thanks for the research here!
        2. tonymet · · focus · HN ↗
          moreover, their topline 30e6 estimate is likely underestimating the amount of fraud. most likely there is 2-3 x.

          One reason why, is that no civil person would consider it ( hence a lot of the pushback ). It&#x27;s a prime target!

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