Warning - counterfeit stamps

[Paq]

Just picked up an item from the Royal Mail delivery office, paying £2.50 for the privilege because the sender used a counterfeit postage stamp.

The sender is an older relative, with some vulnerabilities and would be devastated that her kind gesture caused this inconvenience. She is definitely not a person who would deliberately buy fake stamps, or buy something from a recognisably dodgy source.

Attached a picture to show how good the fake is. The guy at the delivery office said that one way to tell is that the barcode part will feel rough when you run your fingers over it.

Where on earth would she have got it? Corner shop selling stamps maybe? It would be worth letting her know so she doesn’t buy more and waste her money, she could (or you could) then report where they came from.

The guy at the delivery office said that one way to tell is that the barcode part will feel rough when you run your fingers over it.

Rough when it's fake or rough when it's genuine?

I can only imagine it's a corner shop. She doesn't venture far from home.

Rough when genuine.

Update - apparently they came with her Tesco delivery 😮 we haven't followed up with Tesco yet and I can't even start to think who might ultimately be responsible.

Interesting, there was someone on our local Facebook group selling large quantities of 2nd class stamps.

A friend bought a load off Amazon recently (to send out christening invites) and every invite was held at the various sorting offices due to the stamps being fake.

Will get the refund off Amazon ok but the invites were bespoke so will need to be remade plus there is the time delay in getting them out to the recipients.

I also got some from Amazon for Christmas cards last year and three people told us their cards were sent with forged stamps.

Royal Mail does sell stamps on Amazon, but you need to make sure the listing is headed "Visit the Royal Mail Store" and that the clickable link does take you to the store itself.

Also, Royal Mail has advice on its website about stamp fraud
https://personal.help.royalmail.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/14308

It’s on the One Show right now. Someone seemingly bought stamps from the post office & the recipient had to pay to collect it as it was deemed the stamp was counterfeit!

I caught the end of that . It seems endemic.