Stamps on eBay

jsmith9

They are stamps that have already been used for posting, but royal mail have omitted to frank them.

It is a criminal offence to knowingly use them ie you are defrauding the post office.

It used to be easy to get away with using them but these days RM has several procedures in place to spot them

RFW

cymruchris said:

mimi1234 said:

Having looked at the feedback, one person left a negative saying they are fake but everyone else is giving positive feedback. Hmmm.

Put your 'MSE brain' head on for a moment - the current price is 76p for a first class stamp - 100 x 76 = £76.00.

There is no way in the world that Royal Mail would sell people 100 stamps for let's say £27.00 so that the seller could make £3.00 profit per sale. That's almost 1/3 of the retail price. 

Indeed. There is very little mark up on stamps to resell. I'm surprised this is still allowed.

Spoonie_Turtle

RFW said:

cymruchris said:

mimi1234 said:

Having looked at the feedback, one person left a negative saying they are fake but everyone else is giving positive feedback. Hmmm.

Put your 'MSE brain' head on for a moment - the current price is 76p for a first class stamp - 100 x 76 = £76.00.

There is no way in the world that Royal Mail would sell people 100 stamps for let's say £27.00 so that the seller could make £3.00 profit per sale. That's almost 1/3 of the retail price. 

Indeed. There is very little mark up on stamps to resell. I'm surprised this is still allowed.

It's allowed because their disclaimers are that they are not selling them for reuse. Obviously they are, especially when selling stamped envelopes and with a very big 'Save money!' encouragement in the descriptions ... so then the blame is passed onto buyers who choose to use them even though many of them genuinely are not aware that 'for philatelic use only' is code for 'already used', or even that reuse is illegal. I wasn't 100% sure myself when I first started needing a lot of stamps

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

I think it's shocking (but not surprising) that someone can sell £20,000 through a single listing and eBay doesn't flag that as a business and force the seller to upgrade their account. 

RFW

Spoonie_Turtle said:

RFW said:

Indeed. There is very little mark up on stamps to resell. I'm surprised this is still allowed.

It's allowed because their disclaimers are that they are not selling them for reuse. Obviously they are, especially when selling stamped envelopes and with a very big 'Save money!' encouragement in the descriptions ... so then the blame is passed onto buyers who choose to use them even though many of them genuinely are not aware that 'for philatelic use only' is code for 'already used', or even that reuse is illegal. I wasn't 100% sure myself when I first started needing a lot of stamps

I see that but there are plenty of things not allowed in similar circumstances (ie where the onus is on the buyer to beware of what they are purchasing). The solution would be to prevent the sale of more than a certain amount of one item in stamps.

DiddyDavies

RFW said:

Indeed. There is very little mark up on stamps to resell. I'm surprised this is still allowed.

It's the same with a fair few items in the UK.
You can buy and fit a laser jammer to your car without having broken any laws. It's only becomes illegal once you start using it.
It's the same with e-scooters. Perfectly legal to buy and own but their use becomes illegal if ridden anywhere except on privately owned land and with permission of the land owner or keeper.

mimi1234

One seller has sold tonnes of these for between £25 and £35.  Where would someone get so many?  

Spoonie_Turtle

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

I think it's shocking (but not surprising) that someone can sell £20,000 through a single listing and eBay doesn't flag that as a business and force the seller to upgrade their account. 

RFW said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

RFW said:

Indeed. There is very little mark up on stamps to resell. I'm surprised this is still allowed.

It's allowed because their disclaimers are that they are not selling them for reuse. Obviously they are, especially when selling stamped envelopes and with a very big 'Save money!' encouragement in the descriptions ... so then the blame is passed onto buyers who choose to use them even though many of them genuinely are not aware that 'for philatelic use only' is code for 'already used', or even that reuse is illegal. I wasn't 100% sure myself when I first started needing a lot of stamps

I see that but there are plenty of things not allowed in similar circumstances (ie where the onus is on the buyer to beware of what they are purchasing). The solution would be to prevent the sale of more than a certain amount of one item in stamps.

Oh agreed, absolutely. It's sickening.

mimi1234 said:

One seller has sold tonnes of these for between £25 and £35.  Where would someone get so many?  

Some must surely be fakes, but the ones saying used baffle me.

pallyman

I have sold stamps on eBay which were real but stopped because of scammers so there are genuine ones out there,in fact been thinking how to get rid of some and may try Facebook .

martindow

I wonder where these stamps come from.  Who is collecting up all of the envelopes to steam the stamps off them?