alt Hacker NewsI am pretty sure I bought from a seller using this (or something similar) on eBay. It sent me down a rabbit hole of reading about this type of scam that exploded earlier this year: https://www.uspsoig.gov/sites/default/files/reports/2026-04/...
Here's how it went down:
https://www.ebay.com/fdbk/feedback_profile/theperfectpart
Note that they’ve sold so much that even 1k neutral ratings are barely registering - they have “100% positive feedback”
I bought a cheap tool from this seller on ebay. Tracking number was provided showing my town as the destination. About four days later, I get an unprompted ebay message from the seller: “I monitor all my shipments and sometimes there are problems so I’m proactively sending you a new one, here’s a new tracking number.”
The original tracking number showed a message I’d never seen before “Item seized - counterfeit postage”. The new tracking number showed postage that had been bought back in January, but never entered the mailstream. Huh. I suspect that buys them time while they re-ship.
I did eventually get the item after another tracking number was provided.
My suspicion is that the seller uses counterfit USPS postage on 'x' number of packages to juice their margins. If you look at the neutral reviews, you can see a pattern — slow postage, lost package, had to replace, blah blah. Look at the positives — rave reviews at how fast things are arriving. Probably because the seller is “paying” for higher end postage via scamming the USPS.
And only when they get caught by USPS do they need to re-ship an item. They must get away with it enough to make it worthwhile
Replies
Thanks for the links. I'm confused how this works and the USPS report seems to be heavily redacted around details.
I would assume that the tracking number has the address details tied to it (I mean, based on support claims with USPS it definitely does), but maybe there's some obscure package type where destination is not distinct and they abuse that in a pool with other sellers, then at the last mile it gets sorted appropriately?
Seems wild that this market even exists considering how USPS flat rate postage exists.
Was your package something heavy or extremely light which makes weight-based shipping more economical?
Related: Not US postage labels, but suspicious US postage stamps, seemed to also be used as a crude currency.
A third-party seller on Amazon or eBay was including sheets of suspicious US postage stamps in product shipments, unsolicited, with full-color glossy notes offering more stamps in exchange for positive reviews.
(I took the stamps and note I received to a post office, where a manager agreed they looked suspicious, and I asked them forward it up the chain. I like the USPS as a trustworthy service and institution, and I hate counterfeiting.)