Watch out for counterfeit postage stamps this holiday season

The holiday season is in full swing, which means people are rushing to finish shopping, wrap all their gifts, and send out their annual holiday cards. To get those holiday cards out in the mail on time, consumers may look online to purchase postage stamps quickly and easily.

Unfortunately, scammers are taking advantage of people in a hurry to purchase postage stamps for a reasonable price before the holiday season ends. BBB Scam Tracker has received an increase in reports about websites selling counterfeit discounted postage stamps. Some websites even impersonate the United States Postal Service (USPS).

How this scam works

Your holiday cards are addressed and ready to mail, but you need postage stamps. You don’t have time to go to the post office today, so you wonder, “Can I buy stamps online?” After a quick Google search for stamps, you click on a link that advertises a 50% discount on stamps. What a steal! However, the website is fake, and scammers are hoping you’ll fall for their too-good-to-be-true offer and provide your payment information.

You proceed and purchase stamps for your holiday cards. You go to your cart, click “Checkout,” and enter your personal information and credit card details for payment. Later, you see the charge to your credit card was made by someone’s PayPal account – not USPS.

If you contact the company’s customer service, you may get an email back from a scam artist pretending to be USPS or another legitimate company. One consumer shared their experience: “I called my bank and then emailed the help line listed on the page about canceling my order. I received an email from uspsfaststamps@hotmail.com stating that I was being refunded. However, that pending refund transaction later disappeared from my credit card account.”

And if you do receive stamps, you may notice that they look different from the stamps you purchase in person at the post office. Chances are these stamps are counterfeit and you cannot use them to mail your holiday cards. One consumer shared, “I ordered postage stamps online. They do not work and if you look at them closely, they are not legitimate.”

How to avoid similar scams 

• Make sure the website is real. Before you give out your personal information, confirm whether the website is legitimate. Look closely at the website’s URL. Scammers may slightly misspell URLs or use tricky subdomains, hoping you won’t notice you’re on the wrong site. See BBB’s tips on how to identify a fake website.
  
• Confirm the website is secure. Again, you’ll want to pay attention to the website’s URL. Secure website URLs start with “https://” and show a lock icon on the purchase page. To learn more, visit BBB.org/BBBSecure.
  
• Be wary of ads on social media. Social media ads are a popular way for scammers to trick consumers into buying counterfeit merchandise. Watch for red flags like discounted pricing, spelling and grammatical errors, and poor-quality images and logos.
  
• If a price is too good to be true, it probably is. Think twice before purchasing an item that is heavily discounted. Scammers prey on consumers who are looking for a good deal.