Check before you buy

Discount Forever stamps online: are they fake, and what if I used them?

Updated 28 September 2026

A Forever stamp costs 82 cents, so a coil of 100 is $82 at the Post Office. An ad offering that coil for $45 is not a bargain. It is a sign that someone other than the Postal Service printed the stamps. On September 24, 2026, postal inspectors announced they had seized LabelsBank.com, a site that allegedly sold more than 5.1 million counterfeit shipping labels, typically for $2 each. A week earlier, the Postal Inspection Service warned consumers that discounted stamps and labels sold online are likely fake, and pointed them to a way to report the sellers.

Are discount Forever stamps sold online real?

Real stamps have one price. The Postal Inspection Service's counterfeit postage page says it plainly: USPS does not sell stamps below face value. Fakes turn up on social media marketplaces, from third-party sellers on shopping sites and on standalone websites, often in bulk and at 20 to 50 percent off. A seller based outside the United States is another warning sign, according to USPIS.

Face value right now is 82 cents for a one-ounce Forever stamp. The Postal Service raised it from 78 cents on July 12, 2026, and the temporary price increases running through January 17, 2027 apply to packages, not First-Class stamps. That makes the math easy:

• A book of 20 costs $16.40 at face value.
• A coil of 100 costs $82.00.
• At 20 percent off, that coil would be $65.60. At half price, $41.00. Both sit in the range USPIS describes for counterfeits.

There is one narrow exception. USPIS notes that some legitimate big-box and warehouse retailers give very small discounts on stamps through resale agreements with the Postal Service. USPIS does not put a number on it, but a very small discount from a known retailer is a different thing from half price in a Facebook ad. The USPS Approved Postal Provider programs also let grocery stores, convenience stores and ATMs sell stamps, on the condition that they sell at or under postal prices.

What did postal inspectors just shut down?

According to the Postal Inspection Service's announcement, Faheem Akram, 33, of Khanewal, Pakistan, is charged with running LabelsBank.com. The site allegedly sold counterfeit USPS postage labels at a flat rate, typically $2 per label regardless of the package's weight, size or destination. Inspectors from the Miami Division found that more than 5,000 customers had bought more than 5.1 million labels, and the indictment alleges more than $126 million in losses. A court order authorized the seizure of the domain and the shutdown of the site.

Akram faces one count of conspiracy, five counts of making and selling counterfeit postage stamp labels and four counts of wire fraud. These are charges, not convictions, and the release says every defendant is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.

The labels side matters to ordinary shoppers because the same economics sit behind a lot of cheap shipping. When a package crosses the country for $2, somebody else is paying the difference. Usually that is the Postal Service, right up until the package gets caught.

Key facts and dates

• May 7, 2023: a Postal Service rule takes effect that treats mail bearing counterfeit postage as abandoned. It now sits in section 604.8.4 of the Domestic Mail Manual.
• September 26, 2025: the Postal Inspection Service's Counterfeit Postage Reporting System starts taking reports, according to its counterfeit postage page.
• June 16, 2026: the USPS Office of Inspector General reports that a contractor found 8,895 instances of counterfeit stamps being marketed or sold in nearly two months, typically imitating Forever stamps.
• July 12, 2026: the Forever stamp rises to 82 cents.
• September 10, 2026: the Inspector General estimates the Postal Service lost $3.1 billion to counterfeit shipping labels from March 2024 through February 2026.
• September 17, 2026: USPIS warns consumers about counterfeit postage sold online. The same release describes a Los Angeles case with more than $171 million in losses, in which one defendant was sentenced in July 2026 to two and a half years in prison.
• September 24, 2026: USPIS announces the LabelsBank.com seizure and charges.

Where do fake stamp sellers find people?

Online, and often on social media. A U.S. postal inspector told News10NBC in Rochester, New York in July 2025 that social media, and Facebook pop-up ads in particular, had been a problem. The Better Business Bureau's December 2023 holiday alert on counterfeit stamps described people who searched online for stamps and landed on sites offering 50 percent off, some of them dressed up to look like USPS.

The alert also sketches how the rest tends to go. In its walkthrough, the charge on the buyer's card turns out to have come through someone's PayPal account, not USPS. One consumer it quotes emailed the site to cancel, got a "refund" email from a free webmail address, and later watched the pending refund vanish from the card. Another said the stamps did not work and did not look right up close.

Timing matters too. When U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized 161,860 counterfeit Forever stamps in Chicago in February 2025, it said counterfeits spike around card-sending holidays. Holiday card season is coming, and so are the ads.

The habits on our page about checking whether a website is safe help here, but price is the faster test. If the discount is big, you already have your answer.

Can you tell a fake stamp just by looking?

Not reliably, and the Postal Service will not teach you how. When it adopted its counterfeit postage rule in 2023, USPS said it would not publish the security features it checks, because revealing them could help counterfeiters. The Inspector General's June 2026 report on counterfeit stamps found that some fakes had noticeable defects, but that most are good enough for the Postal Service and consumers alike to struggle to tell them apart. CBP said that although the stamps it seized in Chicago were poorly printed, counterfeit quality is improving and the average consumer may not notice a difference.

Some outside checks have found differences. When News10NBC bought stamps from USPS and from a discount site and had an imaging scientist examine them, the backing material differed, and under ultraviolet light the discount stamps glowed while the USPS stamps stayed dark. A BBB representative told a Birmingham TV station that the word "forever" on some fakes is misspelled or has a line under or through it. Treat those as clues, not tests. Not finding them does not prove a stamp is real.

The checks that work happen before you pay: who is selling, where, and at what price. Real stamps come from the Post Office, usps.com or an approved retailer, at face value or within cents of it.

What happens to mail sent with counterfeit stamps?

It may never arrive. Under Domestic Mail Manual section 604.8.4, items found in the mail with counterfeit postage are considered abandoned and disposed of at the Postal Service's discretion. The 2023 rule behind it says USPS does not have to prove the mailer knew the postage was fake, since the rule is about handling the mail rather than punishing anyone, and that it will not deliver such mail, even as postage due. USPIS adds that these items can be opened. They do not come back to you.

That is the real cost of a cheap roll of stamps. The Inspector General's stamp report says the mailpiece is disposed of even when the counterfeit was used unknowingly. A USPIS spokesperson told WMBF News in South Carolina in February 2026 that bills sent this way may go unpaid, which means a late fee or a missed payment you never knew about. Think about what you put in the mail with a stamp: a rent check, a tax form, a court filing, a birthday card with cash inside.

Being fooled is not the same as running a scheme, but USPIS says it is illegal to buy or use counterfeit postage, and repeated use draws attention. The same spokesperson said people who used fakes without knowing usually get a warning letter first, with federal charges possible if it continues. USPS News reported in September 2025 that inspectors had issued 358 voluntary discontinuance orders to people and businesses using counterfeit postage since October 2024.

To be fair about the odds, plenty of counterfeit postage does slip through. The Inspector General found that 97 percent of counterfeit shipping labels were processed for delivery from October 2023 through February 2026, which is why the losses got so large. That figure is about labels, not stamps, and it describes a gap USPS has been closing: the same audit says counterfeit volume has fallen since a December 2025 peak, likely because of new controls. Betting your mail on a gap is a poor trade for a few dollars saved.

I already bought discount stamps. What should I do?

1. Stop using them. Do not mail anything that matters with them, and do not pass them on to anyone else.
2. Keep the evidence. Save the ad or listing, the seller's name and website, the order confirmation, the payment record and the packaging the stamps came in.
3. Ask for your money back through the way you paid. For a credit card, call the issuer and dispute the charge. The FTC's guide to disputing credit card charges says the Fair Credit Billing Act covers things that weren't delivered as agreed, and that a written dispute must reach the issuer within 60 days after the first bill with the error was sent. For PayPal, Venmo or Cash App, the FTC says to report it to the app right away and ask it to reverse the payment. On eBay, the Money Back Guarantee covers items that don't match the listing if you open a request within 30 days of delivery, and you may not have to ship back an item with strong signs it is counterfeit.
4. Do not expect the Post Office to swap them. WMBF reported that USPS will not refund or replace counterfeit stamps, and the Postal Inspection Service's reporting system says USPS employees do not validate whether stamps are genuine.
5. Report the seller. Use the Counterfeit Postage Reporting System at mailtheft.uspis.gov and choose the Counterfeit Postage option. The form asks where you got the postage, how you found the seller and how you paid, and lets you attach files. Add a report at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.
6. Hand the stamps in. The reporting system asks people who bought or received suspected counterfeit stamps to turn them over to their local Post Office, with the packaging and any paperwork, so they reach the Postal Inspection Service.

If you typed your card number into an unfamiliar stamp site, watch the account for other charges and follow our steps for when you typed a card into a fake site. If a "refund" email or call follows, treat it as a second scam and read I paid a scammer: what now.

Are cheap shipping labels the same scam?

Yes. If you sell online or ship a lot of packages, the offer looks different: a website, reseller or group chat selling USPS labels for a fraction of the retail rate. LabelsBank.com's alleged flat rate, typically $2 a label, is the pattern. The Inspector General's September 2026 audit shows the scale: an estimated $3.1 billion in lost revenue over two years, and packages with counterfeit labels rising from 9.7 million in October 2023 to a peak of 29.4 million in December 2025.

The same audit found that USPS mistakenly intercepted about 2 million packages that had paid labels between December 2024 and February 2026, mostly because of employee or technical errors or because mailers sent their payment records late. So if a package you sent was held for postage and you paid a real carrier or a legitimate shipping service, you have a case to make. USPIS sends questions about packages seized for unpaid postage to the USPS Package Fraud Prevention Team, which you reach through missingmail.usps.com.

On the buying side, USPIS's advice is short: if a package you ordered is not delivered because the seller used counterfeit postage, report the seller to the Postal Inspection Service. Then ask the marketplace or your card issuer for a refund, since the item never arrived.

What about a job reshipping packages?

The Postal Inspection Service's September 17 warning includes a tip that has nothing to do with buying stamps: if you are hired to reship packages for a company using its postage labels, it is most likely a scam. The "job" is receiving boxes at home, relabeling them with labels the company sends you and mailing them on. USPS News described the pattern in 2025: the goods are typically bought with stolen credit cards, and the labels are counterfeit. The FTC's December 2025 alert puts it bluntly: reshipping goods is never a real job.

The Better Business Bureau of the Midwest Plains published two warnings on September 15, 2026 about what it describes as reshipping job scams involving two companies: Midstate Freight Inc., with more than 25 Scam Tracker reports from 15 states, and PakNext Inc., with 24 reports from 15 states. Applicants described jobs receiving, inspecting and reshipping packages, and an "onboarding" process that asked for driver's licenses, Social Security cards, bank details and selfies holding their ID. The BBB checked the Kansas City addresses on the two websites: one belonged to an unrelated business that said it had no connection, and the other was an empty building for rent. It referred both to the Missouri Attorney General and postal inspectors.

If you sent those documents, identity theft is the bigger risk, not the job. Follow our steps for a Social Security number you gave out and place a free credit freeze. For these cases the BBB lists the Postal Inspection Service at 1-877-876-2455, option 5, or uspis.gov/report. Job scams that start with a text are covered on our job offer text page.

Where can I buy stamps safely?

• A Post Office. Face value, no guesswork.
• The Postal Store on usps.com, which is where USPIS points people who want to buy online.
• By phone or mail from USPS. The Postal Service's own 2026 stamp announcements list 844-737-7826 and mail orders through USA Philatelic.
• Approved retailers. Stamps to Go, one of the USPS approved provider programs, sells stamps in more than 62,000 retail locations such as grocery stores, convenience stores and ATMs, with no added surcharges.

Buying online from anyone else, even on a big marketplace, puts you back where USPIS warns you not to be: dealing with a third-party seller you cannot check. eBay's counterfeit policy bans counterfeit postage and fake Forever stamps outright, and Amazon's seller rules prohibit counterfeit stamps. A listing being live does not make it genuine.