Fake UK stamps blamed on Chinese-made counterfeits
www.bbc.com
People are unknowingly buying fakes from Chinese firms through online marketplaces, reports suggest.

Reports suggest a rise in complaints that stamps bought from legitimate stores are being deemed counterfeit. Anyone who receives a letter with a fake stamp is charged £5 by Royal Mail.

Conservative MP Iain Duncan Smith told BBC Breakfast: “China is behind it.”

A Royal Mail spokesman said: “We are working hard to remove counterfeit stamps from circulation.”

Consumers are being warned to look out for strange perforations around the edge of a stamp, a shine to the surface or the colour looking off.

  • GreatAlbatrossMEnglish
    1•7 months ago

    Their new barcoding system could allow them to sunset stamps after a certain number of years (though I can imagine the uproar if they did!)

    • @Ross_audioEnglish
      4•7 months ago

      It would also negate the point of the legislation that means they have to accept stamps in the first place.

      You should not have to visit a post office in person or online to post a letter.

      There are letter boxes in walking distance. If you’ve bought a book of stamps everything you need is in your desk.

      That’s the system we have and it would never be designed by a business that way. But it’s a business that’s taken on that system alongside the I infrastructure for it.

      If you genuinely depend on the post accessibility to it is important. It could be modernised but it was working before, modernisation and cost saving are not the same thing.