Thread

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

281 points · 169 comments · ilamont

zucked · 1790713521 · focus · HN ↗
I am pretty sure I bought from a seller using this (or something similar) on eBay. It sent me down a rabbit hole of reading about this type of scam that exploded earlier this year: <a href="https://www.uspsoig.gov/sites/default/files/reports/2026-04/25-072-3-r26.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.uspsoig.gov/sites/default/files/reports/2026-04/...
Here's how it went down:
<a href="https://www.ebay.com/fdbk/feedback_profile/theperfectpart" rel="nofollow">https://www.ebay.com/fdbk/feedback_profile/theperfectpart
Note that they’ve sold so much that even 1k neutral ratings are barely registering - they have “100% positive feedback”
I bought a cheap tool from this seller on ebay. Tracking number was provided showing my town as the destination. About four days later, I get an unprompted ebay message from the seller: “I monitor all my shipments and sometimes there are problems so I’m proactively sending you a new one, here’s a new tracking number.”
The original tracking number showed a message I’d never seen before “Item seized - counterfeit postage”. The new tracking number showed postage that had been bought back in January, but never entered the mailstream. Huh. I suspect that buys them time while they re-ship.
I did eventually get the item after another tracking number was provided.
My suspicion is that the seller uses counterfit USPS postage on 'x' number of packages to juice their margins. If you look at the neutral reviews, you can see a pattern — slow postage, lost package, had to replace, blah blah. Look at the positives — rave reviews at how fast things are arriving. Probably because the seller is “paying” for higher end postage via scamming the USPS.
And only when they get caught by USPS do they need to re-ship an item. They must get away with it enough to make it worthwhile
1. neilv · 1790715494 · focus · HN ↗
  Related: Not US postage labels, but suspicious US postage stamps, seemed to also be used as a crude currency.
  A third-party seller on Amazon or eBay was including sheets of suspicious US postage stamps in product shipments, unsolicited, with full-color glossy notes offering more stamps in exchange for positive reviews.
  (I took the stamps and note I received to a post office, where a manager agreed they looked suspicious, and I asked them forward it up the chain. I like the USPS as a trustworthy service and institution, and I hate counterfeiting.)
  1. squirtle24 · 1790717335 · focus · HN ↗
    It might have to do with the fact that the First Class stamps exploded in price recently. It was $0.55 right before covid, but now it's $0.82. It's like printing counterfeit money, except easier. A 4x5 sheet the size of a postcard becomes worth $16. The stamps themselves have relatively little in the way of counterfeiting measures, especially if you consider that "Forever" stamps exist. So even if they introduce anti-counterfeiting measures into new stamps, a pirate could print old-style Forever stamps, circumventing the new measures.
    The USPS is also, ahem, rather incompetent, and their own report [1] shows that "mitigation efforts are limited, with no substantive approach to identify counterfeit stamps in the Postal Service network. While the Postal Service and the Postal Inspection Service have increased prevention-related efforts, the quantity of counterfeit stamps in the network remains unknown."
    So the increased value of the stamps, the inability to change old Forever stamps, and the lack of enforcement have created a perfect storm for the counterfeiters.
    [1] <a href="https://www.uspsoig.gov/reports/audit-reports/counterfeit-stamps" rel="nofollow">https://www.uspsoig.gov/reports/audit-reports/counterfeit-st...
    alexfoo · 1790719791 · focus · HN ↗
    The UK moved to stamps with unique QR codes back in 2023 for the bulk of its stock.
    <a href="https://www.royalmail.com/sending/barcoded-stamps" rel="nofollow">https://www.royalmail.com/sending/barcoded-stamps
    There are still some "Forever" stamps (those with pictures on or Christmas Stamps) but the old non-QR code non-forever stamps stopped being legal a while back (but you can always swap them for the new ones for free).
    I've had people try and reuse a QR-coded stamp, you just get a postcard saying there's an item of mail with invalid postage for you to collect (and pay for). You get to look at it before you decide whether to pay the fine or not and then your argument is with the sender to reimburse you or not.
    fredoralive · 1790748224 · focus · HN ↗
    “Forever” stamps in US terms are what 1st class / 2nd class stamps have always been in the UK since they appeared in the ‘80s, where they remain valid for a level of service forever. The US went through a weird phase where they had 1st class stamps, but they would only actually be for the monetary value of whatever the 1st class rate was when issued, so if the rate went up you’d have to add extra postage.
    The basic split between what has barcodes and what doesn’t it that the everyday “definitive” stamps (both 1st/2nd etc. and those with a direct monetary value) were withdrawn and reissued with barcodes, but commemorative and special stamps weren’t. Basically, stuff sold to stamp collectors to be put in a box and never used on postage doesn’t have them.
    consp · 1790752164 · focus · HN ↗
    > but they would only actually be for the monetary value of whatever the 1st class rate was when issued, so if the rate went up you’d have to add extra postage.
    Reminds me of our monetary stamps. They were the old fashioned monetary value stamps which had a fixed value on it, so when the price hiked you could get 5ct/1ct stamps to add to get to the new rate, fixed value of the stamps stayed the same. People added real money to it since they were not going to buy a full sheet of 5ct stamps for one older one to compensate. And since the mail usually didn't care you sometimes got a free 5ct coin as recipient! (As a kid this was always fun to receive).
    Fun thing is that those coins are way heavier than the paper so adding them might get you onto the next cost bracket making the whole excersize pointless.

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