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An Offer You CAN Refuse

The Stamp Collecting Report, I'm Lloyd de Vries. 

What's that saying about an offer too good to be true?

Large rolls of thirty-nine-cent stamps have been offered recently on eBay for FAR less 
than face value. 

Sometimes stamps ARE offered at a discount, legitimately. A company may have gone out 
of business, and the stamps were assets that were liquidated below cost.

But the stamps on eBay aren't: They're fakes, say collectors who've seen them, but good 
ones. Most people -- and postal clerks -- wouldn't be able to tell. 

"They basically got it right on these fake stamps."
RUNS :02

...says Jay Bigalke of Linn's Stamp News.He reports these sales are being investigated 
by the Postal Inspection Service. 

The seller probably knows they're fake, because he prohibited stamp collectors and dealers 
from bidding.

But we can't call them counterfeits -- not yet.

"It implies that we know these people are guilty. We can't definitely say that, that 
they're counterfeits. Years down the line, we probably would be able to do that."

LdeV: "I like the word 'bogus.' It just sounds so much better."

JB: "At this point, they are bogus postage stamps."
RUNS :06

If you bought any of these stamps before they were pulled off eBay, they won't do you much 
good.

"If you did throw them in the mail, the Postal Service's machines would kick them out of 
the system."
RUNS :05

And the deal WAS too good to be true.

I'm Lloyd de Vries of The Virtual Stamp Club. For more about stamps and stamp collecting, 
visit virtual-stamp-club-dot-com

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