Spotting a counterfeit stamp has never been harder.
Royal Mail has admitted criminals are making a “fortune” out of tricking innocent people into buying counterfeit stamps leaving recipients with £5 surcharges.
The Telegraph has identified four major Chinese suppliers offering to print up to one million counterfeit Royal Mail stamps a week and deliver them to Britain within days.
It is understood that the convincing forgeries are being bought unwittingly by small retailers who, unlike the Post Office, are not required to buy stamps directly from Royal Mail and can buy from wholesalers in bulk.
The stamps are also being sold through online retail giants such as Amazon and eBay – and on websites that mimic the official Royal Mail store.
But how can you tell if you’ve been caught out? What are the signs to look out for that your stamp could be a counterfeit? Here, Telegraph Money, provides you with the six questions you should ask yourself to help spot a fake stamp.
How shiny is your stamp?
The first thing to do is to hold your stamp up to a light and see how the light reflects off the stamp. Doing this will allow you to see the Royal Mail lettering which should run over the stamp in a wave-like pattern.
More importantly however, you are trying to see how shiny the stamp is. If the stamp appears to be very shiny, it can be a sign the stamp has been printed on different paper which would indicate a counterfeit.
There should be some sheen coming off the stamp head, but expect the barcoded part of the stamp to be shinier than the head if your stamp is genuine.
Feel the barcode
Having looked at the barcode, and hopefully seen it is slightly shinier than the stamp head, the next thing you want to check is how the barcode feels.
If your stamp is genuine, the barcode should feel raised and you should be able to feel the difference when gently rubbing your finger over the barcode as opposed to the rest of the stamp.
Are the security ovals missing or do they look off-centre?
Royal Mail introduced barcoded stamps in 2022 in an effort to stop forgeries which cost it tens of millions of pounds every year. One of the new security features they added were two security ovals.
Given the complexity of Chinese counterfeit stamps, it is very possible a counterfeit stamp would also have these two security ovals. However, check how they line up compared to the rest of the stamp.
On a first class stamp, the roman numeral I in the bottom left corner should fit completely inside the oval. The outline of the oval should be cut perfectly between the “S” and the “T”.
Equally, you should check the security oval in the bottom right corner of the stamp to make sure the top of the oval is cut at the top of King Charles’ nape, just below where his hair ends.
Do the perforations look spiky?
In the production process, Cartor Security Printers, the company which produces genuine Royal Mail stamps, new stamps go through three units.
The second of those is a die cutting unit which performs the perforations around the edge of the stamp. A counterfeit stamp will have sharper or spikier perforations whereas a genuine stamp should appear to be more square like. However, spotting the difference can be incredibly difficult.
The image below shows two stamps, one of which is genuine and the other is a fake. When looking carefully, you can see the perforations on the right are spikier and suggest the stamp on the right is a counterfeit.
What colour is the logo?
If you have bought individual stamps, this step won’t apply to you. However, when purchasing a book of stamps or even a sheet of stamps, find the Forest Stewardship Council certification.
All genuine Royal Mail stamp books and sheets will have the FSC logo. What is important to check is the colour of the logo.
Royal Mail introduced the new purple colour scheme for first class stamps when they introduced barcoded stamps in 2022. The barcode colour and the stamp both match, Royal Mail being the only postal service in the world to use a purple barcode.
This fact was well publicised at the time of their release, and some counterfeiters have overcompensated by making the FSC logo and the barcode next to it, which you will find on the back of a book of stamps, also purple. On a genuine book of stamps however, these will be turquoise.
Where did you buy your stamps?
The reality is criminal organisations have become very good at producing forgeries. Ian Billings, a stamp expert with more than 60 years of experience, conceded: “They’ve upped their game.
“It was much easier before the barcoded stamps were introduced because [counterfeits] had so many errors but they are very good now. Every aspect of what these forgeries have got are better than they used to be.”
It’s a fact which becomes clear when looking at the official Royal Mail guidance for spotting a counterfeit stamp. The vast majority of the advice revolves around where you purchase the stamp rather than easily identifiable flaws in a stamp because counterfeiters are continually getting better at producing forgeries.
Royal Mail believes sheets of genuine stamps are being shipped to China where criminals are able to effectively copy and paste these sheets on a vast scale to produce forgeries.
Royal Mail says it has taken down more than 300 suspicious listings for stamps online in the past year including some sold on Amazon and eBay.
Royal Mail insists its systems are not faulty and customers can be confident purchasing stamps from the Post Office or through the Royal Mail website if choosing to purchase stamps online.
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