Is Discount Postage Too Good to Be True?
Trenton Sanko - TDS Online Design
Have you come across a site claiming to offer genuine postage stamps at a heavy discount?
You might be tempted to checkout with a cartful of savings instead of visiting your local post office, the USPS Postal Store, or verified partners like Stamps.com.​
We'll take a look at some of these sites to see what level of confidence and trust to approach such offers with.
Which sites have you found discount stamps on?
Review the list below and let us know if there's any we missed!
-
buydiscountstamps.com
-
us-post.net
-
xstamps.net
-
uspostage.shop
-
us-post.shop
-
astamp.shop
-
uspostshop.com
-
stampsshop.net
-
uspsfs.com
-
uspoststores.com
-
uspost.shop
More research is needed for buydiscountstamps.com. The explanation they offer is better than nothing, and it does not seem to be affiliated with the remainder of the list. Which brings us to our first point...
With the exception of buydiscountstamps.com, all of the sites listed above are connected to the same persons and accounts. In fact, across these 10 sites, there are only seven email addresses, two physical addresses, and one phone number - all shared between them.
8957 Earl St, Oakland, CA
This location is listed on xstamps.net, uspostage.shop,
us-post.shop, astamp.shop,
us-post.net, and uspostshop.com.
Earl St. is a dead-end street in a residential area of Oakland.
421 S Brookhurst St, Anaheim, CA
This location is shown on Google as an actual shipping business not clearly affiliated with any of the sites listed here.
Easy Shipping offers local shipping, printing, and other business services, and operates out of the physical location at this address.
Listed on: stampsshop.net, uspsfs.com, uspoststores.com, and uspost.shop
The operator of these sites has "parked" or reserved the following web domains, but they are not currently in use:
uspost.com, uspostal.shop, uspostalstore.com
​
Contact Info
None of the sites listed have professional email addresses, but variations of their web domains as outlook usernames:
astamp.shop, us-post.shop, us-post.net |
uspostage.shop, xstamps.net |
uspsfs.com |
stampsshop.net |
uspostshop.com |
uspoststores.com |
uspost.shop |
All sites share phone number 626-662-0002, listed as "Only message" indicating that it does not receive phone calls.
Let's take a closer look at one of the sites listed above, uspoststores.com.
The closer we look, the worse things get...
-
"Join Our Community" Social Links are not connected - they just reroute back to site
-
Newsletter signup does nothing
-
There are several spelling and grammatical errors throughout the site
-
"3-8 Business Days Shipping via USPS Frist class”​
-
“Secure Payment VIA Paypal, Don't keep any cards information.”​​
-
“30-day Satisfaction Guarantee, Full Refund if dont receive orders.”
-
-
Three of the links go to blank pages:​
-
Customs & Taxes​
-
Locations We Ship To
-
Infringement Policy
-
-
Legal pages are generic and very general​
-
Privacy Policy​
-
Terms of Service
-
-
The return policy is generic and very vague, offering little if any actual recourse for issues​
-
The Payment Methods page is actually copy & pasted from another site - they didn't bother removing the site name from the source text
-
“Paying by credit card is safe, easy and convenient at Milanoo.com.” (Milanoo.com is an online clothing store based in Chengdu, China)​
-
The option to use credit card directly is listed, but in reality, PayPal is used as the payment processor.
-
-
Company Info "News" link does nothing​
-
Information pages share the same content, offering no additional info about the company besides the generic contact info listed in the page footer. Amongst the multiple spelling and grammatical errors, this page begs customers not to file disputes in PayPal for order issues.​
Contact Us / About Us Pages
If you have any question or concerns, pls contact us via email first, we will reply in 24 hours and resolve your problem.
Plssss DO NOT file a dispute in paypal before contact us!
Please put your order detail: order number, recipient name in the message, so that we can find out your order quickly.
Thank you :)
Not enough red flags yet?
What about the shopping and checkout experience?
Customer Reviews
-
There are no ratings below 4 stars, most being 5-star reviews
-
There is no way to sort or filter reviews
-
Reviews seem to be posted in chunks based on the items, and blocks of dates - common with fake or automatically populated reviews
-
The content of the reviews is troubling, as many are short and generic (auto populated) sometimes containing comments about "the item" or "the product"
-
Some reviews are clearly for items not sold by this company.
-
"Super-fast shipping, batteries exactly as described, recommend seller to the eBay community."​
-
-
If you scroll too far down on the reviews page, the page will often freeze and crash​
Customer Account
-
An account can be created from the site, or created automatically during checkout
-
The "My Account" section contains links to two blank pages with irrelevant names
-
My Credits​
-
My Growth
-
-
There does not seem to be a way to delete or deactivate your account​
-
Your name, email address, mailing address, and phone number are retained​
-
While you can delete your mailing address, it is still retained in connection with your order, even when you have not yet paid
-
Product Page
-
You are required to buy stamps in bundles of 100 or greater.​
-
There are multiple meaningless elements on the product page intended to pressure the customer into buying now and buying more
-
A countdown timer purportedly until the price goes up - which never happens​
-
A section showing how many people are currently viewing the item and have viewed the item in the past 30 days - these numbers don't seem to add up
-
Bright, prominent "Coupons" lacking sufficient information or descriptions
-
Cart and Checkout
-
Checkout shipping info defaults location to China, where the site is likely operated
-
Paying ASAP in PayPal is pushed heavily
-
If you skip PayPal quick checkout and opt for Proceed to Checkout an account is created automatically, as soon as you enter info and press Continue to Shipping
-
A reserved cart timer counts down during the checkout process to pressure the customer to checkout as soon as possible
-
Once you've entered shipping information, you can no longer edit your cart, and your order is effectively placed in "waiting for payment" status - pressuring the customer to complete their purchase
-
The customer will receive multiple emails regarding their order, prompting them to complete payment
Which leads us to the last point - the price. The Approved Licensed Vendor of the USPS, Stamps.com offers a deal of your first $5 in postage on the house! If your business or cause uses a lot of postage, you could save money using their service, and that seems like a nice discount. How can they offer free postage? They're able to run promotions like this because they are a subscription service that charges a $17.99/mo service fee after a 4 week trial trial.
The truth is, there is no such thing as discounted postage stamps.
"The U.S. Postal Inspection Service is aware of an increase in suspected counterfeit stamps offered for sale with many being offered on online platforms."
"Buying and using counterfeit stamps is a federal crime."
"The number of counterfeit stamps being sold from online platforms has escalated. Scammers peddle fake stamps on social media marketplaces, e-commerce sites via third party vendors, and other websites. Counterfeit stamps are often sold in bulk quantities at a significant discount–anywhere from 20 to 50 percent of their face value. That’s a tell-tale sign they’re bogus." - USPIS
Copyright 2022 - TDS Online Design