Stamps - Chinese forgeries

[seapost]

Ebay seem oblivious to all the listings of Chinese forgeries of Royal mail stamps -- does anyone know if royal mail ever surcharge letters with these stamps on ?.  It is actually depressing prices at outside auctions when collectors sell

[rwl1002]

Yes, Royal Mail do surcharge forged stamps when their equipment detects them. Ebay won't know if the stamps are forged or not. As there are so many of these forgeries  around it surprises me that Royal Mail are not proactive in looking at listings on Ebay to identify possible forgeries and following this up with Ebay to have the listing removed and the sellers details noted for further action.  

You could report the forgeries to royalmail.com/counterfeit-stamps 

[fotherbale]

It isn't just current Royal Mail stamps either.  Ebay in Australia is similarly awash with counterfeit Australian stamps and ditto for the USPS stamps in the USA.   Not only that, but there are a number of sellers of counterfeit or non-genuine philatelic items who are well known among the philatelic community and their fakes are openly discussed on stamp forums.

These listings are repeatedly reported to ebay, but they do nothing whatsoever about them - now everything is done by bots there are few if any human beings left to actually look at the listings and deal with them.  It doesn't seem to matter what ebay policies (or actual Laws!) that listings are infringing, if you report them you nowadays get a message back saying that they have looked into you report and found no violation.  It is a farce.

[seapost]

Thanks - had no idea it was so widespread.  You can only imagine what would happen if they 

tried forging Chinese stamps !.   EBay should get to grips with it, it has effect beyond their site 

[inpoughkeepsie]

Yes, RM do apply a surcharge to the buyer. I have been on the receiving end on more than one occasion. You will get a little red card through your letterbox for you to go down and collect the item from your local Post Office, and also pay the surcharge.

[gjalp]

I have been known to deliberately purchase some that look to be forgeries when I come across them and then reported to RM and forwarded on the stamps. Ive reported to ebay before but they seem to take no action. I would advise to never buy current postage stamps on ebay but buy from reputable businesses. The classic ‘if it looks too good to be true…’ comes into play here.

As someone who sells collectible stamps and always uses stamps to post out, I tend to use mint ones that come in the back of albums and make up values

[seapost]

I spent ages reporting to RM but no one seemed interested -- I hope the new Czech owner of RM might understand the damage being done to his new business by Chinesee conomic warfare !

[gjalp]

It will have been filed somewhere. I just take them out of circulation when I see them and post them on to RM.