Counterfeiting Postage Labels - Episode 83

https://linktr.ee/KarriKennedy

Just a quick episode on things that are happening lately. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey there guys. I hope everybody is doing really well. I'm coming to you with a really pretty short episode, but I it's just something that oh I've been seeing lots of different posts on social media, uh mostly Facebook seller groups and uh for whatnot. And uh man, oh man, I had no idea. So I was like, okay, maybe you guys know, maybe you don't, but um I'm here to talk about it. So uh the title of this is gonna be United States Postal Service Counterfeit Label Problem and what that means for you, probably, or something like that. Um, but basically, this is affecting a lot of people and not just whatnot, honestly, it's everywhere. And it, you know, I think about this, I was um at my resale store recently, and she I gave her like a 10 or a five, even maybe it was it was a lower denominational bill, and she still used her marker on it to check to see if it was counterfeit. And I said, I thought that only happened with you know hundreds. And she said, No, they started counterfeiting lower dollar amounts too. And I just thought, wow. I said, is that a really big problem? She goes, not so much at this store, but at our other store it is. And I was like, wow, that's just amazing to me. So I feel like there is so much counterfeiting in the world, whether it's purses that you can find on here, whether it's those stinking hens on the nest that are from Timu that people are selling on here. I mean, whether it's money and now shipping labels, guys. And I mean, it makes sense. Why not? I mean, there's always going to be scammers and people who are trying to make money in in bad ways. And I just I feel like this world is, I mean, it's always had problems, right? Kane killed Abel, uh Kane and Abel situation. You know, I get it. We've always had murder and evil, and it's always been bad, but I feel like it's on the up, it's on the rise. I just I feel like we're not living in a world where you know people can trust each other's integrity and honor and respect and wisdom anymore. You you just we're not living in that world. And um, I was mentioning this to my friend the other day, lamenting, you know, the days of Little House on the Prairie when you could just shake somebody's hand and get groceries. And she was like, but there were still problems then too, Carrie. And I'm like, I know, but I don't think it was to this level where you can't even send your package off in the mail anymore without being told, oh, sorry, you know, this isn't gonna work or whatever the situation is. So, anyways, here's the here's the deal. Um, between March 25th and February of 26th, the United States Postal Service, the USPS, processed over 10.7 million packages with unpaid postage tied to counterfeit labels. Counterfeit, meaning they're completely fake and people are shipping, using. I mean, gosh, if you were a dastardly, you know, evil guy out there, I mean, I guess it's a great con because the United States Postal Service and all of us had to pick up the bill, obviously. Um, and then um just between the months of November 25 and February 26, just those four months, it jumped 600%. 600%, guys. Um just gonna say I think certain, I'm not gonna say, but there are certain people who have come onto this platform and other platforms, I'm sure, um, but specifically onto whatnot. And when they came, their notoriety, the people who followed them, whatever, they brought a lot of people. And I'm just gonna say it was during that time period. I was just gonna leave it there, anyways. Um, 600% is a lot, guys, and that's in four months. So they lost around 46 million dollars. I'm like, dude, that's a lot of money to lose in in four months. 46 million dollars, and that's why UPS was like, okay, uh, enough is enough. We've got to do something, right? So they started cracking down. And and we have all seen it. I've seen it, other people have seen it. The obviously my mean, angry, hostile male lady has seen it, no doubt. Um, but they see in March 26th, they started seizing suspicious packages. They were, you know, taking them in and they got over a hundred thousand of those, right? And they did like this whole rollout. Why is this package this way? What happened here? Whatever. It reminds me of that movie with um, oh gosh, what's his name? Leonardo DiCaprio. Catch me if you can, if you guys have ever seen that movie, good movie. Um, totally go see the movie if you haven't seen it. If you know, you're like shaking your head, like, yeah, yeah. So they did like this whole investigation, you know, and then they changed some of their policies so that their male people would know better how to, you know, spot this and check that and verifications and blah, blah, blah. Um, and that way they could catch these bad guys, you know, kind of like the post. I mean, the the government, when we made the money, we put that little green strip interwoven through the hundred dollar bills now. So, I mean, you just have to make it more and more difficult for these con artists, right? So now the system it flags a label that is unverified. And now the the clerk, the person, the worker at their desk or wherever sees it as quote, unpaid. This is quoting because other people have said this. And um, this one girl was like, What do you mean? I paid for this, and um, this is happening all over. If you go to Facebook groups for whatnot, there's all kinds of talk. One person after another after another. This one girl, you know, I took 11 packages, I took this many packages, whatever. So they're they're like, we did the right weight, we did the right dimensions, we printed up the label, everything was fine. How how could this happen? And here's I guess what's happening. I can't, you know, be for sure what happened with that girl. I don't know the situation totally, but that's what made me come do this episode. Hold on, sip of coffee. Yeah, so basically there's Shippo, um, one of the major platforms. They came out and they told people to wait 60 minutes before purchasing a label before dropping it off. Because the United States Postal Service needs time to verify and sync everything. Now, whether that's true or not, I don't know. That's just when I did my deep diving on Google and such. Um, sometimes they're saying that dependent on what postal service, you know, where you're living and how backed up they are, that it's taking longer than 60 minutes. And some people have said it can take up to 48 hours. Well, then that's gonna be crazy, right? Because if we have to sit around and wait for 48 hours before we can take our boxes, then all of our shipping is late, all right. You know what I mean? Most of us um try to get our stuff out within a day, two at the max. I mean, there's some people who don't give a rip on here, but for the most of us, the best case people, um, we're trying to get it out quickly. So we can't sit around and wait, you know, wait because there's fraud potentially going on. Um, so long story short, technology and the people and all of them are all working together to try to figure it out. But what that means for you today, tomorrow, this week, wherever you are, because it's not gonna happen, it's not happening with me. I haven't had this issue. But let's just point out, I'm at one of the post office annex buildings where all the post office comes. I mean, all the post office, all the packages come to my place to go out. It's where all the trucks are and everything. And I don't even hand my stuff to a clerk or anything. I go to the back, I put it in the priority and the ground, and I separate it, and I'm I've never had an issue. I'm doing this episode for those of you that have had an issue or about to have an issue. Um, because basically you can get flagged at the counter because the system is still processing it to make sure whether or not it is a fraud. So even if you've paid for it, even if you generated it from your own home computer and everything, because of their system checking it, it might not go through. And it basically, in a nutshell, just needs time. So, what should you basically do at this point? Um, print up your labels, you know, from whatnot, right? Make sure that you have the right label on the right box. We've talked about this ad nauseum, but just to be sure, um, I actually talked to a guy yesterday. This is a squirrel. Um, I talked to a guy yesterday when I called the USPS phone number to place my order because I have a set order on it, it's very easy. I only call Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday, and I pick up the phone and I'm like, hey, William, how are you? or whatever. And they know. And I ordered a couple different things today, this day. And I said, This weird thing happened where I put a priority sticker on and it was on a flat rate box. It costs more to do that, but they charged the girl $11, whatever. I told him the situation, and he was like, Yeah, that's really weird. They shouldn't have flagged that. So, once again, guys, you know, whether it's parents, teachers, or cops, sometimes things get away and and and you can you can drive down the road 100 miles per hour, you can fake that, you know, test and cheat on it, or you could tell your parents, you know, that your sister did it, whatever. Um, but in a nutshell, that's really where we're at with all of this. They're going to do their very best to verify and establish that the payment is gone and everything's right. So, what you need to do is just make sure that you're generating your labels, you're putting flat rate on flat rate, you're putting priority on priority. Um, priority stickers can also go on brown boxes. Um, you're making sure all this, if there's another episode recently, um, gosh, I can't remember the title of it, but it's also about this and the upcoming uh changes that are happening. I think it's in June or something. Um, anyways, the system sink might be delayed and you might have to just sit around and wait. I would suggest that you guys, if you pack up your boxes, you wait at least an hour to maybe three hours just so that it can go through the system and sync. Um, and then you know, it's difficult. I was really frustrated with my post office recently because I couldn't go to the back until 12:30 and it was like 12 o'clock. And I'm like, dude, I've got somewhere to go. He's like, sorry, you can't do it. I'm like, you're seriously? It's one box. You can't take this because I've got an appointment. No, no, like hardcore. And I was like, this is ridiculous. You're supposed to be working for me. I just need to drop off my package. You're telling me there's nowhere. And they were like, no, no, you have to wait till 1230. So it can be difficult when you have and frustrating when you have to deal with these people in these situations. But when you go get a receipt, always try to get a receipt if you're worried about this. Um, that's your proof, that's your documentation. Share this episode out with other people if this is happening to them. And yeah, I mean, I guess that's it, guys. There's not really a whole lot we can do. I imagine and I hope that over the next, you know, five months or so, uh, things will get better because they're hearing everybody, you know, the frustration isn't just on our side, it's on the postal worker side. It's it's on the government side, you know, it's it's the financial, it's all of it. So um, you know, if you've ever had fraud, we've had bank fraud before, where people have stolen our IDs, we've we've had our money taken. If you've ever been a victim of any kind of fraud, which is probably the majority of everybody who's listening here, you know how frustrating it is. So I say we just give them a break, don't freak out about it. If you can't drop off your boxes, put them back in your car, go get some ice cream, then bring them back. You shouldn't have an issue. You don't need to reprint them or try to reach whatnot, because that's not helpful. Um, you know, all that. Anyways, so that's the situation. There's like I said, I'm not gonna go through and read all the stuff that's on Facebook groups, but you're welcome to go there and look because there are a lot of girls in there who are saying this happened to me and that happened to me and blah blah blah. So, anyways, guys, if this is helpful to you or any of these episodes are helpful to you, I would really love a five-star review. It takes like 30 seconds to to go in and actually write out a review. Um, and also if you guys want to call or text me, my phone number is 832-607-1526. It's a $20 fee for a 30-minute one-on-one consult. Most consults end up taking an hour to an hour and a half. Um, but if you have some quick questions or whatever, feel free to call me. I would love to help you guys out. Um, and yeah, just pray that we can catch these fraudsters and they can figure out the whole system and things can work smoother. And you know, we're living in a different time, guys. More than more than ever, people are reselling and selling on social on social platforms like Facebook, Poshmark, whatnot, eBay, all that. It is just gonna continue to grow. This isn't stopping anytime soon. So just buckle up, get ready for the changes. It's gonna happen. Um, and just try to do your best with the right weights, the right packages. What uh go back and listen to some of the other episodes uh about this if you're interested. Okay, that's it. I hope you guys have a great weekend and we'll talk to you later. Bye bye.