Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
APS Executive Director Scott English sent a letter to John Hegeman, Vice President and Head of Monetization for Meta, demanding it take down a paid advertisement featuring English and Ken Martin, Director of Expertizing. Meta is the parent company for Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads. The ad, sponsored by Flowers Postage Stamps, a website promoting the sale of counterfeit stamps, featured English and Martin from a first day of issue ceremony for the Life Magnified Forever stamps held at the Great American Stamp in Cleveland, Ohio.
“The user likely knew that images of Ken and me would lend credibility to the sale of these counterfeit stamps,” said Scott English, “Meta not only needs to take this advertisement down, but it should lead the way in stopping the proliferation of advertising on its sites.”
The U.S. Postal Service has worked to slow the flow of counterfeit postage stamps into the marketplace, estimating a 50 percent reduction in stamps making it to the market. In fiscal year 2022, the USPS announced it had seized $7.8 billion in counterfeit postage, which still means a large volume of fake postage is still getting into the hands of unsuspecting consumers.
As noted in the letter,
The average consumer cannot differentiate between genuine and counterfeit modern U.S. postage without training and special equipment. Instead, they hope and trust that platforms like Facebook or Instagram properly vet their advertisers to protect the consumer. Unfortunately, you do not, and we all suffer as a consequence.
Counterfeiters are more sophisticated now than ever, making detection difficult even for experienced collectors.
The surest way for consumers to buy genuine U.S. postage stamps is directly from the U.S.P.S., either at a local post office, online at usps.com, or at an authorized reseller.
The APS received the alert from Wayne Youngblood, who has done exhaustive work on counterfeit U.S. postage. See Wayne share information on Conversations with Philatelists, Part 1 (Debunking Online Stamp Scams) and Part 2 (Detecting Counterfeit USPS Forever Stamps).
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While I think this is good move for the APS, I do not think that either the counterfeiters or the USPS cares much about the people who are buying collector stamps or those who might be using them for personal mail. The volume of counterfeit stamp sales to collectors or individuals is miniscule compared to what is being used by mass mailers.
A quick search online can find countless numbers of ‘marketing firms’ who are selling advertising in the form of mass (or ‘junk’) mailings. They send hundreds of thousands of these into the mail stream every single day here in the US alone. Many of these companies exclusively use counterfeit stamps purchased for pennies on the dollar on mass mailings that either have no return address or a fake return address. The USPS can spot these large, bundled mailings (unlike being able to pick out the small number of personal mailings flying through the mail stream) and now (thanks to a new regulation implemented this year) can throw them all into the trash. Before this new regulation, the USPS was obligated to handle and service millions of these mass mailings by trying to return them to a fake return address or process them as ‘dead letters’.
Don
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09:29:07am
I created a Facebook account strictly for stamps and follow a few groups in addition to administrating one - "British Colonies Stamp Collectors". I get the Forever ads constantly in my feed, as well as fake accounts promoting them in our group. Here is what I do whenever I see the ads:
Right click the ad and report it as fraudulent activity. I think Facebook takes them down if they get reported.
To keep the group posts out, I created a setting requiring administrator approval for all new member's posts. We deleted the new members when we saw they were promoting their bogus product. It immediately controlled the problem. We were getting 40 comments a day from new "users" touting the Forever stamp sites. Now we don't get any.
I encourage any member who is using Facebook to apply the same tactics. They can't sell the "stamps" if they can't be seen.
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Good Job Scott!
When I see these ads on Facebook I report them as fraud. I don't know what good it does, the ads proliferate like crazy. And the Facebook posts have the comment visibility turned off, no doubt because the comments are all yelling "SCAM!"
The one thing I worry about from USPS, is that we all use older postage, sometimes an array of postage on our mail as collectors. Many of us have been asked at the postal counter, "Are these really stamps?" so I'm worrying that maybe my eBay shipments could hit the trash without notice to me.
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Over the past year, I have encountered numerous ads for counterfeit stamps on Facebook. Dutifully, I report each of them as spam to the Facebook people. That, seemingly, just multiplies the number of them.
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Unfortunately I do not believe some consumers care if they are counterfeit. I recall the days of seeing all those bootleg 8 tracks being sold at gas stations, etc,
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Yes, there will always be those.
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@musicman
Please I assume you are referring to stamps and not 8 track tapes?
1898
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" there will always be those"
Meaning there will always be some uncaring consumers.
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Paid Advertisement featuring APS Officials Promotes Counterfeit Stamps
APS Executive Director Scott English sent a letter to John Hegeman, Vice President and Head of Monetization for Meta, demanding it take down a paid advertisement featuring English and Ken Martin, Director of Expertizing. Meta is the parent company for Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads. The ad, sponsored by Flowers Postage Stamps, a website promoting the sale of counterfeit stamps, featured English and Martin from a first day of issue ceremony for the Life Magnified Forever stamps held at the Great American Stamp in Cleveland, Ohio.
“The user likely knew that images of Ken and me would lend credibility to the sale of these counterfeit stamps,” said Scott English, “Meta not only needs to take this advertisement down, but it should lead the way in stopping the proliferation of advertising on its sites.”
The U.S. Postal Service has worked to slow the flow of counterfeit postage stamps into the marketplace, estimating a 50 percent reduction in stamps making it to the market. In fiscal year 2022, the USPS announced it had seized $7.8 billion in counterfeit postage, which still means a large volume of fake postage is still getting into the hands of unsuspecting consumers.
As noted in the letter,
The average consumer cannot differentiate between genuine and counterfeit modern U.S. postage without training and special equipment. Instead, they hope and trust that platforms like Facebook or Instagram properly vet their advertisers to protect the consumer. Unfortunately, you do not, and we all suffer as a consequence.
Counterfeiters are more sophisticated now than ever, making detection difficult even for experienced collectors.
The surest way for consumers to buy genuine U.S. postage stamps is directly from the U.S.P.S., either at a local post office, online at usps.com, or at an authorized reseller.
The APS received the alert from Wayne Youngblood, who has done exhaustive work on counterfeit U.S. postage. See Wayne share information on Conversations with Philatelists, Part 1 (Debunking Online Stamp Scams) and Part 2 (Detecting Counterfeit USPS Forever Stamps).
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re: APS Demands Meta Remove Counterfeit Stamp Advertisement
While I think this is good move for the APS, I do not think that either the counterfeiters or the USPS cares much about the people who are buying collector stamps or those who might be using them for personal mail. The volume of counterfeit stamp sales to collectors or individuals is miniscule compared to what is being used by mass mailers.
A quick search online can find countless numbers of ‘marketing firms’ who are selling advertising in the form of mass (or ‘junk’) mailings. They send hundreds of thousands of these into the mail stream every single day here in the US alone. Many of these companies exclusively use counterfeit stamps purchased for pennies on the dollar on mass mailings that either have no return address or a fake return address. The USPS can spot these large, bundled mailings (unlike being able to pick out the small number of personal mailings flying through the mail stream) and now (thanks to a new regulation implemented this year) can throw them all into the trash. Before this new regulation, the USPS was obligated to handle and service millions of these mass mailings by trying to return them to a fake return address or process them as ‘dead letters’.
Don
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Collecting King George VI from all countries, and King Edward VII and King George V from the West Indies.
26 Sep 2023
09:29:07am
re: APS Demands Meta Remove Counterfeit Stamp Advertisement
I created a Facebook account strictly for stamps and follow a few groups in addition to administrating one - "British Colonies Stamp Collectors". I get the Forever ads constantly in my feed, as well as fake accounts promoting them in our group. Here is what I do whenever I see the ads:
Right click the ad and report it as fraudulent activity. I think Facebook takes them down if they get reported.
To keep the group posts out, I created a setting requiring administrator approval for all new member's posts. We deleted the new members when we saw they were promoting their bogus product. It immediately controlled the problem. We were getting 40 comments a day from new "users" touting the Forever stamp sites. Now we don't get any.
I encourage any member who is using Facebook to apply the same tactics. They can't sell the "stamps" if they can't be seen.
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like this post.
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re: APS Demands Meta Remove Counterfeit Stamp Advertisement
Good Job Scott!
When I see these ads on Facebook I report them as fraud. I don't know what good it does, the ads proliferate like crazy. And the Facebook posts have the comment visibility turned off, no doubt because the comments are all yelling "SCAM!"
The one thing I worry about from USPS, is that we all use older postage, sometimes an array of postage on our mail as collectors. Many of us have been asked at the postal counter, "Are these really stamps?" so I'm worrying that maybe my eBay shipments could hit the trash without notice to me.
Login to Like
this post
re: APS Demands Meta Remove Counterfeit Stamp Advertisement
Over the past year, I have encountered numerous ads for counterfeit stamps on Facebook. Dutifully, I report each of them as spam to the Facebook people. That, seemingly, just multiplies the number of them.
Login to Like
this post
re: APS Demands Meta Remove Counterfeit Stamp Advertisement
Unfortunately I do not believe some consumers care if they are counterfeit. I recall the days of seeing all those bootleg 8 tracks being sold at gas stations, etc,
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this post
re: APS Demands Meta Remove Counterfeit Stamp Advertisement
Yes, there will always be those.
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12:00:05am
re: APS Demands Meta Remove Counterfeit Stamp Advertisement
@musicman
Please I assume you are referring to stamps and not 8 track tapes?
1898
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re: APS Demands Meta Remove Counterfeit Stamp Advertisement
" there will always be those"
Meaning there will always be some uncaring consumers.
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this post