Can I get your guys thoughts on this please. For months now I have been using cheap Royal Mail 1st class stamps off eBay. They come in books of 12 and sell for around £7/8 instead of £10.20! I send lots of postcards to my friend in Phoenix and they always arrive.
I usually go through 3-4 books of 12 1st class stamps in a month Is what I’m doing fraud and is it frowned upon in the community?
No it isnt. Its fine.
It depends whether they are forgeries or not, there are plenty of fakes out there, it is not easy to tell, the fakes look pretty good these days , there are subtle differences between the genuine and the fake. If they’re fake and get spotted then there will be postage due at the other end as unless there is a return address Royal Mail cant return to sender. It is of course illegal to sell Fake GB postage stamps anywhere and Royal mail revenue protection will be constantly looking out for them. If they are bona fide then you’ve clearly got a bargain, there cant be a problem buying bona fide stamps on any second hand market as Stamp Fairs ( when they run ) are awash with them , known as “postage” in the trade expect to pay £75 for £100 's worth of postage. Plenty of other sellers of postage on popular auction sites. For Postcrossing most recipients would usually rather receive postcards with Commemorative issues rather than Machins in my experience especially stamp collectors. Regards D
Thanks for the input. As I say I go through at least three books of 12 a month and they arrive without any hassle every time. You can get even cheaper ‘Unfranked off paper’ stamps that go for pennies. When I used to write to my friend in prison and send him stamped addressed envelopes Id buy a ton of these stamps and they would all be fine. Thinking of buying some when I get paid and try sending a few to the US
This is indeed fraud!
https://personal.help.royalmail.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/14308/~/what-is-stamp-fraud%3F
Oh dear 
Yes you can get unfranked off paper stamps, so how this works is that dealers buy vast amounts on paper from charities that have been through the Post but missed Royal Mails franking machines this is especially common at Christmas with large volumes. These are unsorted but there are a given percentage that miss the franking. The dealer does the sorting ( Occasionally the charity ) and he will then sell these as unfranked stamps sometimes described with no gum and sometimes undescribed. It is not rocket science that these ( self adhesive stamps ) are removed from the paper on an industrial scale and resold as stamps without gum, he’s not suggesting you actually use them for postage, that’s down to you. My understanding is that you cannot legally reuse any GB stamps once they have been through the post irrelevant as to whether they were postmarked the first time round or not. The fact they have no gum, often look washed is a pretty clear indicator of secondary usage…Of course this issue would be resolved if Royal mail had more success with actually franking post in the first place rather than miss vast amounts and pen cancel anything they actually pick up as missing a franking thereby destroying what they ofte selll as a collectable item in the first place. Regards Derek
PS the best way to buy cheap legitimate postage is to find a stamp fair near you when they restart after Covid , usually monthly and find a dealer that sells "Postage " these will be all decimal multi values commemorative stamps going back years and you need to add the stamps up to get to the current 1st class or whatever you like. Hint , buy a sheet of 1p and 5 p stamps to help make up odd differences, you should not pay more than £75 for £100 face value. Roll on the stamp fairs. D
Thanks for the explanation - I wondered how that worked when I saw them selling on E-Bay.
Hi Phil, how many first class stamps do you put on a post card to send overseas?
I’ve only just began sending and I’ve been going into the post office each time. They put on a £1.70 stamp. It sounds like you have a better way!
Hey @lucydoran you can use two first class stamps to send worldwide! Basically any value of stamps that add up to £1.70. Saves you going to the Post Office every time!
Check out the British Isles section of the forum - there’s some chat about stamps there too 
ah that’s good to know, thank you! I’ll go have a look see
You can find some chats here: https://community.postcrossing.com/c/communities/british-isles/60 and some chat on here which might be helpful too: Is sending a postcard with just normal stamps wrong?
Hi, Yes as stated 2 1st class stamps is enough to cover postage worldwide for a postcard
Thank you for answering 