Selling Current Stamps at "discounted" prices

NBLondon

SpideressUK said:

.  Philatelink is evidently a reputible company but mentioned on their Facebook Page "Beware of fake website for 'discounted stamps.net' who are using our good name to sell counterfeit stamps to their unaware customers. Everything about this website is fake other than the money you send to their bank account.." and that was one of the websites I was wondering to use to sell the stamps to so it seems it is easy to be "caught out".

That's because discountedstamps.co.uk is a genuine company but .net isn't Yep - you are right to check out.

NBLondon

SpideressUK said:

I bought the bulk of the stamps in 2003 so was likely paying 28p for the first class (of which I have over 1,200) and 20p for the second class (of which I have over 350) so even at 50% of current FV price there is still no "loss" as such.  I have a few hundred odds of stamps 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p, 42p which only amount to a relatively small amount (£134 ish) which would be the biggest loss in "trade-in".  Even at 50% trade in on the 1st and 2nd Class there is still about £700 tied up there in stamps and the "webuyanystamps" seem to be offering 60-80% of FV so it might be more like £740-£1,111 which is a lot of money to have tied up in stamps that I am never going to use. 

Right - over £200 worth then.  So you'd have to use the Bulk Form https://www.royalmail.com/sites/royalmail.com/files/2022-04/Stamp-Swap-Out-Form-over-200-pounds-v1_3.pdf which RM advise you to send by secure means i.e. Special Delivery to Tallents House in Edinburgh.   You should then get that SD fee refunded in extra stamps.  I say should because there are people reporting that it gets forgotten.   If you've got any high values in your "odds"  put them on the package to pay the SD fee,

There's another huge thread at https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6331387/royal-mail-barcoding-stamps-existing-stamps-valid-only-until-31-jan-2023/p1 for you to read.

The other, other thing you could do is look for a local to you stamp dealer that you could actually visit and do a deal with.  You might only get 50% of face but you might get actual cash as well as avoiding the hassle.

Good Luck - whichever route you choose!

SpideressUK

NBLondon said:

SpideressUK said:

.  Philatelink is evidently a reputible company but mentioned on their Facebook Page "Beware of fake website for 'discounted stamps.net' who are using our good name to sell counterfeit stamps to their unaware customers. Everything about this website is fake other than the money you send to their bank account.." and that was one of the websites I was wondering to use to sell the stamps to so it seems it is easy to be "caught out".

That's because discountedstamps.co.uk is a genuine company but .net isn't Yep - you are right to check out.

ah, that is cunning! a tiny change but looking like the same company name!

SpideressUK

NBLondon said:

There's another huge thread at https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6331387/royal-mail-barcoding-stamps-existing-stamps-valid-only-until-31-jan-2023/p1 for you to read.

I spent quite some time this morning reading that very long thread and came to the conclusion that since I was going to pay £8 ish in SD postal fee (that would likely not be refunded) I might as well take a chance and post them (for the same postal fee - which I paid with my 100 "spare" none barcode stamps anyway) to UK Stamp Company whose internet is webuyanystamps and who offered me £850 - so 55% FV for the 1st and 2nd and 45% of all the other "price printed on" stamps.  I did all I could to verify that the company is legitimate and have been emailing/texting and in phone conversation with "Kev" there.  The stamps should be with them on Monday next week and they claim to pay fairly quickly so I will report back once/if they do.   I figured there was no point spending £8is SD to convert them into bar code stamps and THEN still have to spend another £8ish SD to send them to a company who claim to buy them at the discounted F/V rate. 

I did google things like "sell current stamps near me" etc but id didn't come up with anything obvious where I could physically go in with the stamps.

The stamps were just left over from when I was self-employed so they money spent on them is "gone" anyway and I am unlikely to use over £1K in F/V stamps in the rest of my lifetime so they would probably end up going to waste.  Whilst I'd not be best pleased to lose the potenial £850 he said he will pay or the fact that from a F/V point of view I had over £1K value in stamps I'll just put it down to "one of those things" if it all turns out to be fraudlent.

SpideressUK

I am absolutely delighted to say that it really was totally above board and I received my £851.51 from UK Stamp Company Limited who trade as webuyanystamps today! I am chuffed.  Thank you for everyone who contributed to this thread.

db2016

trade them in with  RM for barcode, then keep back some to use. and put the rest on ebay, or sell to someone who would use em, and yea you might time a hit, eg ive bought £50 worth of stamps and i paid £42 ish - so i gained a lil, they lost a lil but it was fair.
but they probably bought when it was cheaper and it said "letter" so they probably made on it etc because non labelled with value stamps were timeless.

SpideressUK

db2016 said:

trade them in with  RM for barcode, then keep back some to use. and put the rest on ebay, or sell to someone who would use em, and yea you might time a hit, eg ive bought £50 worth of stamps and i paid £42 ish - so i gained a lil, they lost a lil but it was fair.
but they probably bought when it was cheaper and it said "letter" so they probably made on it etc because non labelled with value stamps were timeless.

I think if I had bought them more recently ie not 2003 ish and so might have originally paid what is near enough current face value I would have probably gone with the "swap out" route to get back bar coded ones and then kept them for a few more years so that the potential future price increases would have covered any "loss" I'd have made in "selling fees" or "dodgy buyers reclaiming via Paypal" but since mine were bought so relatively cheaply (2003 prices) I was happy to sell them at 55% of current face value all in one go to a company who buys stamps this way as even at 55% I'd still "made profit" and now have actual cash in the bank from them rather than a lot of money tied up in a "dead money" kind of way ie tied up in stamps.

The purpose of this thread was a) to try to establish if these comapanies who say they will buy current stamps are legitmate and b) hopefully provide at least one company that I had then experienced a trade with who really did pay out so that anyone else in my position can potentially benefit from my experience.

TOP_CAT

In hindsight I was thinking....
What if you had exchanged only the stamps with marked values printed on them for barcoded stamps so you secured them and no loss took place on only those stamps ?
Of course you would have had to use them though so depends how much the total was 

SpideressUK

TOP_CAT said:

In hindsight I was thinking....
What if you had exchanged only the stamps with marked values printed on them for barcoded stamps so you secured them and no loss took place on only those stamps ?
Of course you would have had to use them though so depends how much the total was 

Yes I did think about doing that but the bulk of them were in 1ps and 2ps and I never know for sure how much a letter is going to cost as I didn't "transition" to whatever it is they do now about bulk and size compared to weight so I always go in the post office with letter in hand saying "I've got the stamps can you tell me is it just a normal 1st class price?" and at that point stick on the stamp...........so then I had visions of me holding up a post office queue whilst I "licked and sticked" 95 bar coded 1p stamps (even if there was enough room that that many!) on my envelope!.......with that in mind I thought "for the sake of it the man can have them all!".  I did lose about £73 though in that overall transaction loss but, on the other hand, the man might have given me a better quote BECAUSE these "others" were in there so its hard to say if it was such a loss or not.