Royal Mail, the British postal and courier service began switching all snail mail stamps to barcoded stamps last year. The purpose of the barcode was to enhance security, deter stamp reuse, and possibly prevent forgeries—which it has failed to do.

If a stamp have a barcode, why not just let people who have printers at home to print it on the envelope directly? This eliminates the need to buy physical stamp, thus the probability of buying counterfeit stamps.

  • SquiffSquiff@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    1·
    7 months ago

    Sorry but at this point my money is on the Post Office being incompetent and dishonest. They have form given the ongoing Horizon scandal.

    • This is a newly introduced system
    • There’s no evidence it has ever worked correctly
    • I’m not seeing any corroborating evidence, e.g. people being prosecuted for making or selling forged stamps
    • I’m not seeing an explanation offered as to why such forgery is only happening now as opposed to before barcodes were introduced