Fake Stamps

[Bert45]

I heard on the news that the 'bar code' on stamps means that every stamp is unique, so they can spot the fakes. I have two questions. If the fakers copy a genuine bar code, how would the Post Office find it as a fake? While there may be millions of possible bar codes (isn't it a sort of QR code?), the Post Office must print millions of stamps, so will they run out of possible bar codes?

[barry1010]

They know when an unfranked stamp is being reused by the barcode.

I suppose they could re-use barcodes on different denomination stamps.

The way to stamp it out is to stop third party sales and only allow the sale from the post office or other approved re-sellers.

[Bert45]

It has been alleged that some people have bought fake stamps from where they would think that the stamps would be genuine, i.e. convenience stores. This means (I think) that some stores must be buying stamps from online sources that must be cheaper than from the Post Office. These stores can be identified by the Post Office because their purchases of stamps from the Post Office must have dropped. Individuals who are buying stamps on-line must by now be aware that they are buying fakes. Their friends who are being charged £5 to collect their mail will soon inform them.

The re-use of unfranked stamps must be a small part of the problem for the Post Office. I suppose my question is really: How many permutations of black and white squares on the stamps are there?

[barry1010]

Stop convenience stores from selling them.  
 

[Tuvok]

It was also stated that some of the stamps bought direct from Royal Mail were being flagged as fake.

[barry1010]

That's what anyone would claim though

[barry1010]

These days you can buy your stamp online from RM and have your letter or parcel collected for the standard price of the stamp.

[youngmafbog]

Barry @ 12:19 has the answer, but they wont do it mind offend the wrong sort.

I cant see why the PO cant have a stamp checker app.  Should be pretty easy to create.

[barry1010]

I remember when corner shops gave stamps as change when they had no coppers in the till

[barry1010]

I can't see a shopkeeper handing over stamps so you can check them with an app before you pay for them

[youngmafbog]

Either check them in store or refuse to buy them there.

I'm pretty sure they would soon exchange them if caught out before the Rozzers pitched up.  Mind you you would probably have to register a hate speech against the shop owner for them to turn up.

[Togo]

The dodgy stamps are all from "conveniece stores". Now which "convenience" stores do you think that is, or who do you think the owners of such "convenience" stores might be? Answers on a postage stamp to    ...   we know who you mean, but are not encouraged to say so or we will be arrested instead.con.

[Togo]

A post office spokesman might soon say "we know who is selling the fake stamps but are busy scouring the country to prosecute a little old lady named Smith or Jones to make an example of her instead".

[bhg481]

Perhaps the PO have tweaked the Horizon software to declare the stamps forgeries so that they can get some extra income from the fines,

[barry1010]

The Post Office is a different company, nothing to do with Royal Mail

[THECORBYLOON]

I mind on reading the other day someone had used several stamps from a book of stamps and a couple of them were said to be fake.

That sounds like whatever system is used, it identified genuine stamps as fake or fake ones as genuine.

It's not going well for Royal Mail and Post Office, is it?

[Bert45]

I didn't know how many squares were in the stamps' QR codes. Auntypoll has provided the answer to the second part of my question. The number of possibilities must be close to or exceed the number of atoms in the world. But why don't the fakers copy a genuine stamp? How will the reader know that this stamp is the fake and not the genuine one? The reader 'knows' the QR codes of all the genuine stamps, but what if the purchaser of the fake uses it before the purchaser of the genuine stamp uses it?

As to stopping convenience stores selling stamps, that would hurt communities that don't have a post office nearby. The point of convenience stores is that they are ... convenient.

[Khandro]

I once knew an English artist, a brilliant miniaturist, who on the morning a new stamp was issued would wait to buy the stamp, rush home and spend several hours making a perfect copy of it usually in watercolour. He would then, before the last collection of the day, fix it to an envelope & post it to himself to get it stamped as the first day of issue.

There are serious collectors of fake stamps, not that he would have sold his 'first day of issue fakes.'

I asked him if he was not worried that he could be arrested for fraud, & he said to me, "not at all, I always put a real stamp on the envelope as well."   

[DTCwordfan]

now we may have an idea what Paula Vennells has been up to recently??