Counterfeit Forever Stamps

Forever Stamps Shop in just another scammer selling counterfeit US stamps. Would you really expect a crook to tell the truth about their offering?

Yes, they would defend themselves, I agree. They wouldn't admit they were doing something illegal! I had a feeling that site was not quite legit. I didn't know until very recently that counterfeited stamps were being sold online. I was just looking for a design that the USPS had discontinued...buyer beware!

I am very suspicious of midwestern_dealz on eBay

"I can ascertain that your first & third stamps are not 5344(CF1). According to my 2021 Scott catalogue, the microprint is essentially a blob and hence not readable. "

In this specific case (5344), the microprinting blob is not in itself sufficient to classify a stamp as counterfeit. I have 9 double-sided panes of 20, Plate No. P2222 that I purchased at the post office with the microprinting showing as a blob (unreadable), which have been expertized by APS as "United States, Scott 5344, full booklet plane [sic] with inking flaw, unused. Genuine."

New Low Price for Counterfeit Forever: 8.898 cents each. $89.98 for 1000 (face $730.00) with free shipping.

"10Roll of US Stamps 2024 /1000 Total Stamps/New Seal /J" on eBay with a seller of zero (0) feedback.

It just gets worse.

How much did you pay for the stamps? Significant discount over face indicates counterfeits

At some point the USPS will realize that it's losing more money from the sale of counterfeit forever stamps than it makes selling new issues to collectors.

The number of buyers in the first category is increasing; the number of buyers in the second is declining.

There's only one way around the problem, and that is to get rid of stamps almost entirely. Do what they've trialed in places like the Netherlands and replace stamps with a one-time use alphanumeric code.

Until then, it's simply playing a (losing) game of cat and mouse with the counterfeiters.

Pains me to say as a stamp collector, but really, how many of us collect new US issues, anyway? (Judging by the constant grousing about the latest SpongeBob, etc. issue, probably not that many.)

Maybe carve out an exemption for anything with a denomination under, say, 32 cents, so that folks with sheets of mint stuff at home can use up their various scraps.

Far more important to me than the continued presence of new issues is the long term vitality and health of the USPS, along with their principle to deliver to every address.

Or stolen.

I don't check out the listings, so I would miss it, but I'd love to see an ad with, "NOT COUNTERFEIT! These are stolen."

That might be an interesting marketing twist for the counterfeiters. Or a social experiment, to see who still buys. Or both.

Or deal with the root cause as some like to say, which is China. Why let a bad actor modify your behavior. That is like saying that because there are counterfeit bills we need to get rid of paper money. Changing an entire legacy system carries a gigantic price tag especially when the government is doing it.

Deal with the problem.

I know that when I was volunteering with a kids group a few years back, we had a lot of trouble finding used examples of new issues, but they were selling. So someone must be collecting them.

Sure - what do you actually propose? Hard enough to get the drug precursor problem solved, let alone something like this that's less important. I don't see the new administration (any administration, really) leaning hard on Beijing on this particular issue, not when so much else is in play.

Besides, if it's lucrative enough, they'll just set up shop inside the US. Mexican cartels have figured it out, and so could stamp counterfeiters. And presumably that'd be much easier to do.

Again, you'd just be shifting the problem domestically.




There are many more ways to detect counterfeit bills than (presumably) stamps. Try spending a fifty or a hundred at a store without a clerk marking it with a pen.

It's a manageable problem - bill counterfeiting isn't a crisis.

Whereas the problem of counterfeit stamps is huge and getting bigger, with no end in sight.





Easy for us to say. So why aren't they? Lack of political will? Postmaster General not doing a good job? Little makes me think that anyone actually can and will deal with the problem at this point.

If PayPal, Visa, MC, etc. were penalized every time they processed one of these transactions, this would end quickly.

When a private entity is the victim there is creative and vigorous action to deal with the China problem. Juul had a massive counterfeiting problem in China and guess what? They solved it. You can look it up and read about how that was done. It takes a will to do something. Saying that the largest trading partner of China can't do anything is ludicrous. And the same goes for the fentanyl problem. One thing that is a sticking point is that after all of the Congressional hot air during COVID about moving our prescription drugs and other critical goods back to the US nothing has happened. China still has us over a barrel. If we cannot solve the stamp problem we have much bigger problems. Someone in government has to grow a set, and the American public has to accept some discomfort in the short-term. Do you think that China would have the same lax attitude as we do if we were flooding them with counterfeit postage? No, they would not.

To repeat, bending to China by modifying our behaviors and systems is weak and in their culture is seen as a green light to engage in ever more belligerent conduct. Appeasement is not a real policy.

So unfortunate that these counterfeit stamps are flooding the market! Thanks to this forum, I learned that the discontinued-design stamps I had bought online were probably counterfeit. Oddly, I asked a postal employee at our local post office to test the ones I bought, he tested with some kind of light device, told me that they were valid, so I used them. Does this mean that local POs do not have sophisticated enough equipment to test for counterfeit stamps? I now buy only from USPS.
I do think that the Postmaster is not a good actor, and Biden should have fired him. This counterfeit problem will likely continue under the new administration. Not to mention all the other USPS problems, such as re-routing that slows down mail, trashing equipment, talking about getting rid of electric postal trucks, short-staffing, etc. Will privatizing the USPS solve these issues? Highly doubtful!

I've taken counterfeit stamps to the local P.O. They scan property and look legit. The clerk could only tell a difference when he held a counterfeit sheet next to a real one.