Not enough stamp value

A few months ago I received a card from Australia with only the left stamp twice as postage (coincidence? the same postcrosser?). I reported the card since it was terribly underpaid and the support adviced me not to register it. They informed me that they’re going to contact the member and requested an explanation about the underpaid postage. I think you’d better report your card, too, if you haven’t already done that.

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Can someone help with this one? It has one Forever stamp on it. It doesn’t say Global Forever, so I’m not sure if this is sufficient postage for US-UK. I was about to register it, but in light of this thread, thought I would check first.

That stamp is worth 66 cents (domestic letter rate). One of those by itself is less than half the required postage.

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Thanks John. I’ll contact admin then and see what they say.

Hmm. This is a very interesting topic.
I sent yesterday 10 postcards abroad from Germany and I have been asked for 7€. It seems I underpaid, as mostly I got stamps in 95 cents value.

I brought it to the post office to avoid such trouble. And how I am supposed to know tariff abroad? I hope they will be delivered anyway.

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70 cent is for domestic inside Germany
You are right, it should be 95

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Sadly some employees at the post office really don’t know their own tariffs. This is often discussed in the German language topics.

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I don’t see why this should be reported. I don’t think it’s fair for someone to possibly get in trouble for accidentally putting the wrong postage amount. I’m sure we’ve probably all done it at one time or another.

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They won’t get in trouble.
If it’s accident, it’s of course normal. They can try to be more careful.

But for example one card I received, this person has been reported also before. I think it only had the postcard stamp. I didn’t need to register that card. Postcrossing can’t support and accept underpayment.
The are people who intentionally underpay.

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I have to admit, before this thread, I had never reported it before. And I’ve been aware of underpayment in a few postcards I’ve received over the years. I suppose the only point in reporting it is if someone is deliberately cheating, and the team won’t know that unless several people report the same member.

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Do you consider, the stamp might has been correct and got lost on the way?
If some mishap like that occurrs, I think, it wouldn’t be fair to not register.

Presumably something like that has happened to a card of mine. Or that’s my conclusion from a hint in the hurray-mail - the postcrosser thanked me, really liked the card - and added something about the stamp I didn’t understand (because like all cards, I send, it has gotten the correct stamp).
Since then self-adhesive stamps exert a kind of strong attraction on me … sorry for all stamp-lovers/collectors, safety first …

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I had a nice message from support. They said that this is happening quite a lot at the moment amongst new members from the US. They were going to have a gentle word with the sender, and in the meantime, I can register the postcard. So all is well.

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Since reading this thread, I will make an effort to understand the $ amount of stamp prices and requirements. But I think this could become crazy difficult. :weary:

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Not your responsibility to account for anyone else.

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Sending from USA there are only three (basic) possibilities: domestic card 51 cents, domestic envelope 66 cents, international card or envelope $1.50.

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So I mailed a letter domestically in the USA to my friend. I didn’t catch it was overweight and they just wrote 27 cents owed in the card but delivered it. Is she supposed to just leave a quarter or a stp in the mailbox or how do you pay up?

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If the carrier delivered it, I’d leave the money for the person in my box taped to a note.

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Cool that’s what I said but I wasnt sure if they would actually take money!

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I had not looked closely at the stamps on the card to Brazil before, but just noticed that the eighteen cent stamp has a machine slogan cancel from the 1970s - in full it reads “Please post early - before lunch & before four o’ clock”. Eighteen cents was the domestic rate for postage in Oz in the mid 70s. So as already mentioned, no valid stamps were used. No wonder Australia Post is losing millions in revenue from cards and letters!

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…exactly! People wonder why our prices are going up, and then you see this kind of fraud!

And I find it hard to imagine the person did it accidentally too. The only scenario I can think of is maybe preparing the card - thinking you were going to put it in an envelope - and then forgetting and posting it ‘as is’.

When people ask for cards in envelopes I explain that I will ‘dummy up’ the back of the card…I put full address and sometimes old and used stamps or sometimes pretend sticker stamps. Either way…it goes in an envelope afterwards with full appropriate postage.

I’m sad that someone would knowingly post with used stamps (I can see an old partial cancellation on the lefthand side margin of the 6 cent stamp too), but I guess it doesn’t surprise me.

There is a lot to be said about Australia Post’s lack of attention to detail it would seem…and someone seems to be using that to their advantage. It’s a bit like the envelopes I have received in the mail with older uncancelled stamps simply cut off the old envelope, with a wide paper margin still visible around them, and then sticky-taped to my envelope to be used as postage. It’s bleeding obvious that they’ve been used on an envelope before…but due to being uncancelled, they’re being used again. it would seem that no one in Oz Post cares much :frowning:.

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