New economic warfare method just dropped:

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The Post Office minister, Kevin Hollinrake, has called on Royal Mail to investigate allegations that factories in China are mass-producing fake British stamps for export.

Use of a counterfeit stamp can result in a £5 fine but realistic fakes are being sold online and bought unwittingly by the public and smaller retailers.

The Mail reported seeing Chinese websites offering sheets of 50 counterfeit stamps for buyers willing to commit to a minimum purchase of 20,000.

Alan Mendoza, of the Henry Jackson Society, a neoconservative thinktank, told the Telegraph: “It is inconceivable that a large-scale counterfeit operation like this could be occurring without the knowledge and therefore tacit approval of the Chinese Communist party.

The fakes are often entering the supply chain via smaller shops who are not required to buy directly from Royal Mail and instead source from wholesalers in bulk.

According to the Telegraph, the fakes are sold on widely used online stores as well as websites that mimic the official Royal Mail site.

The original article contains 552 words, the summary contains 165 words. Saved 70%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

So am I the weird one for walking to my local post office and buying stamps directly from them when I need another roll? It's not like the average person needs so many syamps that saving 50 cents per roll will matter much, and any legitimate source apart from the post office naturally has a markup in price.