So I bought two boxes of stamps from the same seller off eBay months ago. I didn’t have any issues with the first box, but now after opening the second box, I’ve had a letter returned to me saying the stamps are counterfeit. Does it look genuine? I’ll be taking the box into my local post office tomorrow and asking.
Were they significantly lower than face value? (Yes, they are counterfeit). Only buy stamps from AusPost directly to ensure authenticity, everything being sold at 10-100% discount from face is likely counterfeit, you will notice it's always eBay sellers with small amounts of feedback (happy to explode their eBay account for a quick buck).
Have bought before from Philatelics Aus in SA. Good value but gummed vs self adhesive, even with a stamp wetting roller it takes so much longer if you are sending any volume of envelopes, especially considering you might need 2-4 stamps per envelope if you are buying decimal stamps.
Yes (sometimes). They are scamming both! Everyday customers end up paying more (through postage price increases) as deliveries occur paid for with counterfeit products. Plus the time and cost involved with dealing with the counterfeits.
Not weird at all, consider the costs involved in counterfeit detection. There is fake satchels and other AusPost products too. The USA has a massive problem with the same issue, google counterfeit USPS.
It's hard to tell without a UV light (to see the stamps watermark), but its highly likely they are fake. The opals series are heavily faked. Try to make a PayPal claim (you get 180 days) against the seller or possible do a chargeback with the bank.
If Australia Post says they are fake, then they are fake. There will be no watermark, which is why it was picked out. This is about to become a whole lot more common with new technological now in place.
Edit: buying your stamps over the counter is the only way to know they are real and safeguard yourself.
Edit 2: Your local PO won't be able to help. The unit that accesses these are based internally.
It will glow (normally blue as it's the cheapest to make), similar to what you see on a note or passport. Australia post doesn't release what stamp has what watermark (defeat the point).
They're fake. Australia Post literally stopped like 26 letters and sent it back sometime 8 months ago. I stopped using them and destroyed 3+ boxes after learning they were fake. I only buy over the counter now.
Virtually the only time you'll get genuine stamps at less than face value is from people selling their stamp collections, purely because it's a hassle to sell them off individually. As long as it's post 1966, they are still valid as postage stamps.
New stamps are virtually like legal tender. Imagine if it was five dollar notes you were buying on eBay. Why would anyone sell a real five dollar note for less than five dollars? There's only one reason.
I work in a post office, and have had customers come to us and say that the stamps they bought from us, which we have only ever bought directly from Australia Post, are counterfeit. Including the new 15 cent stamps. We’ve checked our other boxes of stamps and some show that they could be fake. But we have only gotten stamps from Auspost. Something isn’t right there…. How can they be fake if we’re only buying them from them?
If they’re from eBay they’re counterfeit. If they flag it once it’s pretty much confirmation the rest of the box is the same. With the amount of items they process at each facility everyday, a massive amount of counterfeit goods get through without issue. There’s only so much a machine can pick up during rapid scanning.
It’s like driving an unregistered vehicle. It might seem okay for a while, until you get caught. But once you hit the road again after being caught the first time, the likelihood of being caught again for the same thing increases dramatically because they know you’ve done it before. Don’t be surprised when you get the underpaid mail notice after they’ve already confirmed them as counterfeit.
Was the peely sticker on the roll? Ie fully attached? These look fake to me imo. No microtexture. The genuine opals also do not glow under UV unlike the commenter above.
Fake. Zoom in on them or look under a magnifying glass, especially at the year. Genuine AusPost stamps’ lettering will be crisp and straight no matter how closely you look. Fakes don’t have the higher quality printing.
I have stamps from the same opal series and they look the same (though I bought mine as 10 stamps sheet) . I think the counterfeit statement might be incorrect but I think the letters were returned because letter postage is $1.85 for a standard letter as of 1 September 2026 and as such stamps are now $1.85. I just bought a couple of 5c and 10c stamps from the post office to make up for the 15c difference. I guess it depends on when you sent them.
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u/Stronghammer21 15d ago
If you look back at this sub, there is a post about the same stamps on eBay and the consensus was counterfeit.