Sites Showing/Selling Illegal Stamps

    A certain number of illegal stamps which are the subject of public circulars distributed by the UPU at the request of its member countries, could and can still be found on the Internet sites listed below. We strongly advise all collectors to be wary of such "so-called stamps" and to double-check the authenticity of whatever they see on these sites. The URLs of sites presenting and/or selling illegal stamps aren't configured as links, for an obvious reason.

Dealers Selling Illegal Stamps on eBay

Unfortunately, some dealers and collectors put up illegal stamps for auction on eBay to be sold to unsuspecting people. We remind that the eBay rules assert that sellers assume all responsibility for listing their items. For this reason we warmly  recommend to all dealers to check out on this site for the legality of their philatelic items before offering them for sale. We also suggest to all potential buyers to use the information provided on this site before bidding for contemporary stamps. 

The following sellers either were contacted by the Philatelic Web Watch and they declined to answer or  to withdraw their offers or have systematically offered illegals:

The readers are invited to send directly to the dealers that are selling illegal stamps an e-mail with the following contents:

Your  following eBay lot(s) offer stamps ostensibly issued by XXXX (country name) but which, according to the International Bureau Circular number YYY of Month, Year, were produced without the authority of the Postal administration of XXXX. According to the UPU these are illegal:

http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=123456789

We recommend you, in the interest of philately, to abstain in the future from this kind of activity, and we will inform the Philatelic Web Watch about eventual  future relapses.

Please send each time a CC e-mail  to us, and let us know in about a week if the dealer hasn't complied with the recommendations of the UPU.

NOTES

  1. The sites listed here will be deleted from the list only when the owners/publishers will give concrete proofs that they have changed their policies in the domain of illegal stamps. 
     
  2. The PWO is determined to fight this plague that gnaws at philately. The PWO is representing here the wishes and hopes of hundreds of thousands of stamp collectors worldwide, and for this reason, any attempt to divert the PWO of this way is useless and will be reported on the PWO site.
     
  3. Please consider that we can only process denunciations that refer to illegal stamps, i.e. only to those listed as such by the UPU.
     
  4. Some philatelists have decided to put images of illegals on their sites, in order to fight against them. The PWO, following the position of the UPU,  finds that this isn't a good idea  (please see here for reasons) and consequently won't show images of illegals on its subsite.

Some reactions from sellers to whom we explained in personal e-mails why should they abstain in the future from such a doubtful commercial activity and from readers: 

From the Universal Postal Union (Sept. 18, 2002)

I would like to this opportunity to express again our gratitude for the assistance you are providing the UPU in watching out for the sellers of illegal stamps.

Maria S. Libera
Programme Manager, Markets Development
Directorate of Communications and Markets
International Bureau of the Universal Postal Union
 

Published:08/24/2001. Revised: 11/27/05.
Copyright © 2001 - 2003 by PWO and 
by Victor Manta, Switzerland.