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.

  • HeartyBeast@kbin.social
    10·
    3 months ago

    The universal service obligation obliges them to carry stamps. Getting rid of that would require an act of parliament. Good luck getting that through either house

    • thehatfox@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      3 months ago

      I would hope that be the case, but I don’t have a lot of faith in it. Royal Mail wants to tear up the USO, because they claim they claim they can only be a viable business without it. The ultimate goal seems to be turning RM into just another commercial parcel courier.

      They are being increasingly loud about this, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they eventually bend enough politicians around. The privatised water companies already managed that with the Tories wrapped around their finger.

      • Ross_audio@lemmy.worldEnglish
        7·
        3 months ago

        Or they go close to bust and get renationalised.

        If Labour are smart about it they’ll keep the USO in place and when it’s shown the business isn’t profitable take the assets back into public hands at a reasonable price.

        The key problem with the new stamps is there’s no way for someone to check the validity themselves.

        It’s also just a barcode, so a fake stamp that gets used with that barcode first doesn’t get stopped and the legitimate one does.

        There have definitely been some batches where the barcodes have leaked.

      • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
        2·
        3 months ago

        Royal Mail wants to tear up the USO, because they claim they claim they can only be a viable business without it. The ultimate goal seems to be turning RM into just another commercial parcel courier.

        I mean, that doesn’t sound that unreasonable to me. Electronic communication has done a lot to displace snail mail, and I have a hard time seeing that changing, there being some new use that produces a lot of demand for sending very thin, flat, flexible things. On the other hand, electronic communication doesn’t much replace packages. If anything, it maybe increases demand for package delivery, due to stuff like online shopping.