Fake UK stamps blamed on Chinese-made counterfeits

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.

An investigation by the Daily Telegraph found that four Chinese companies had offered to print up to one million counterfeit stamps a week, with each stamp being sold for as little as 4p each before being sent to the UK.

The fakes have been found for sale on various websites, the paper said, and they were also bought by small retailers who did not realise they were counterfeit.

Stamps join the digital world with barcodes

Alan Mendoza, from think tank the Henry Jackson Society, told BBC Breakfast: "We don't know the extent on whether the Chinese government are involved - but what we do know is that Chinese firms are involved."

Business Minister Kevin Hollinrake said: "It is key to prevent counterfeit stamps entering our supply chain in the UK.

"The Royal Mail must do everything possible to prevent counterfeits entering our circulation and must establish where they are coming from and how they are entering our marketplace."

However, the chance of getting a counterfeit stamp is low, Royal Mail's director of external affairs and policy, David Gold, told the BBC's Watchdog programme on Wednesday.

"People should understand that the overwhelming majority of stamps on sale are legitimate," he said.

"The number of [counterfeit] stamps that we are spotting account for less than 0.1% of the total stamps going through the network."

Barcoded stamps were introduced in 2022 to cut down on the sale of fakes and Mr Gold said this had reduced the number of counterfeits by 90%.

However, he admitted that even he struggled to spot a fake. "The reality is counterfeiters now are so good at what they do that even I... can't tell the difference just by looking at them."

A Royal Mail spokesman said: "We regularly monitor online marketplaces to detect suspicious activity, such as sales of heavily discounted stamps and work closely with retailers and law enforcement agencies to identify those who produce counterfeit stamps."

-bbc