barncat Posted April 13, 2007 Share Posted April 13, 2007 Well, if you thought about copying labels and trying to get 2 for one, forget it!! I finally got my box from laserinkjetlabels and they had the same tracking number on them when the mailman scanned then. Postmaster called me and they are going to investigate it, and want all the envelopes back! Don't know if it was an accident or not, but someones in trouble!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lorrie Posted April 13, 2007 Share Posted April 13, 2007 Ya know I read somewhere that there was a lady that did that. She advertised something like $1.99 shipping on everything. That is what she was doing. They said that she shipped thousands of dollars worth of packages out. I just don't understand why anyone would try something like this.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
islandgirl Posted April 13, 2007 Share Posted April 13, 2007 What envelopes do they want back?? If there was a problem with extra postage, I wonder why the post office did not keep your packages and contact the label company?? (Didn't they scan them)Why are they involving you??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barncat Posted April 13, 2007 Author Share Posted April 13, 2007 Both packages had the exact same label (the tracking numbers were the same, they are supposed to have individual numbers)on them. I don' t think our postman really new what to do, until he told his boss that he couldn't get them to scan and noticed they were the same numbers. I just had to put the empties back in the mailbox for him to check out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
islandgirl Posted April 13, 2007 Share Posted April 13, 2007 Aaahh.. I get it now!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enchanted Posted April 14, 2007 Share Posted April 14, 2007 It was Hoffman Candles that commited the major mail fraud. Here's the article from the Baltimore Sun.<http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local> maryland newsAllegany Co. woman guilty of postage fraudShe admits to running counterfeiting scheme from Lonaconing shopBy a Sun ReporterOriginally published January 12, 2007, 12:24 PM ESTA Lonaconing woman pleaded guilty today to counterfeiting metered postage,according to the Maryland U.S. Attorney's office.According to the statement of facts presented to the court, Julie Hoffman,32, owns and operates Hoffman Candles and Hoffman Mailing Solutions inLonaconing and mailed about 1,000 envelopes and packages daily forindividual customers and businesses. Hoffman advertised that she could mailany item from Hoffman Candles to anywhere in the country, regardless of theweight or size of the item, for 20 cents, according to the U.S. Attorney'soffice.In 2003, Hoffman began to counterfeit metered U.S. postage by printing alegitimate set of postage from Stamps.com and Endicia.com. She then madecopies of the postage on her own labels. Hoffman gave the counterfeitpostage to her employees to use in mailing packages and letters, but did nottell them that the postage was counterfeit. Within a couple years, she wascounterfeiting almost all of the postage in her business. As a result of thescheme, the Postal Service lost at least $251,011.90, according to the U.S.Attorney's office.Hoffman faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison followed by threeyears of supervised release. Sentencing is scheduled for April 6. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mizbizzyb Posted April 14, 2007 Share Posted April 14, 2007 It was Hoffman Candles that commited the major mail fraud. Here's the article from the Baltimore Sun.<http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local> maryland newsAllegany Co. woman guilty of postage fraudShe admits to running counterfeiting scheme from Lonaconing shopBy a Sun ReporterOriginally published January 12, 2007, 12:24 PM ESTA Lonaconing woman pleaded guilty today to counterfeiting metered postage,according to the Maryland U.S. Attorney's office.According to the statement of facts presented to the court, Julie Hoffman,32, owns and operates Hoffman Candles and Hoffman Mailing Solutions inLonaconing and mailed about 1,000 envelopes and packages daily forindividual customers and businesses. Hoffman advertised that she could mailany item from Hoffman Candles to anywhere in the country, regardless of theweight or size of the item, for 20 cents, according to the U.S. Attorney'soffice.In 2003, Hoffman began to counterfeit metered U.S. postage by printing alegitimate set of postage from Stamps.com and Endicia.com. She then madecopies of the postage on her own labels. Hoffman gave the counterfeitpostage to her employees to use in mailing packages and letters, but did nottell them that the postage was counterfeit. Within a couple years, she wascounterfeiting almost all of the postage in her business. As a result of thescheme, the Postal Service lost at least $251,011.90, according to the U.S.Attorney's office.Hoffman faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison followed by threeyears of supervised release. Sentencing is scheduled for April 6.That is just crazy! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
judyvega Posted April 14, 2007 Share Posted April 14, 2007 How did they not catch it sooner? If they're scanning them and stuff? I'm tired so maybe I'm overlooking something.ets, well if she was doing that in 2003, maybe they didn't have the safeguards in place yet? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
islandgirl Posted April 14, 2007 Share Posted April 14, 2007 If you google Hoffman's Candles in Lonaconing MD, a lot of information comes up. It is very interesting.Wow.. What a naughty scheme!! Her website still says Free Shipping.. LMFAO... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hometowncandles Posted April 14, 2007 Share Posted April 14, 2007 Kinda makes ya wonder now, when you see all the ads for free shipping and anything ships for $xx.xx. I see those offers alot online. Now I'm not saying everyone that has those ads is doing something illegal, but I know it cost me an arm and a leg and sometimes two to ship packages. Just wondered how these other companies were doing it so cheap. Now I know Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enchanted Posted April 14, 2007 Share Posted April 14, 2007 How did they not catch it sooner? If they're scanning them and stuff? I'm tired so maybe I'm overlooking something.ets, well if she was doing that in 2003, maybe they didn't have the safeguards in place yet?From what I understand she was using stamps.com to print out actual postage stamps. Postal mail is sorted by machines, it's not actually hand sorted until it gets to the destination office. Basicly, if the person on the end doesn't catch it most like it won't be caught. This stuff is why they keep raising the cost of postage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sherri in Canada Posted April 14, 2007 Share Posted April 14, 2007 It was Hoffman Candles that commited the major mail fraud. Here's the article from the Baltimore Sun.Hoffman faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison followed by threeyears of supervised release. Sentencing is scheduled for April 6.She's still in business so I guess she didn't get thrown in jail.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barncat Posted April 14, 2007 Author Share Posted April 14, 2007 This company has stamps.com too. Next time I get to the P.O. I'll have to ask what was made out of it. So that would be a federal crime I guess? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BLSoaps Posted April 14, 2007 Share Posted April 14, 2007 Kinda makes ya wonder now, when you see all the ads for free shipping and anything ships for $xx.xx. I see those offers alot online. Now I'm not saying everyone that has those ads is doing something illegal, but I know it cost me an arm and a leg and sometimes two to ship packages. Just wondered how these other companies were doing it so cheap. Now I know I know you were most likely joking with this comment, but I wanted to point out a few things. Seeing as you have a website, I'm sure you've come across the headache of working with real-time shipping. Out of curiosity, I placed a candle from your site in a shopping cart, and then proceeded to checkout. No shipping charges ever came up. It listed them as $0.00. My guess is that you then invoice separately for the shipping charges. It's one way to get accurate shipping charges, but I also know that many people won't purchase from a website without knowing in advance what the shipping charges are going to be. Anyway, realtime shipping can be an absolute PITA to get set up to work accurately. And, unfortunately, I'm going to be dealing with setting those up again here very soon. (redesigning all our websites over the next few weeks) With our last web host for our retail site, we could never get it anywhere close to accurate. So we offered flat rate shipping. Granted it wasn't the $1.99 deals, but $5.99. This was our average shipping cost for our average order size at the time. We figured if they ordered more, and the box was heavier, than the larger sale made up the difference. And it DID bump up our average sale. Our normal sale was between $20 and $25. When we added the flat rate shipping, most were well over $30 and $40 per order. The jump in sales made up for the couple of dollars we'd sometimes lose on having to pay for extra shipping. There was nothing illegal about it. It's actually a very solid marketing tactic, and a proven one. The only draw back we came across was we lost a few tiny orders, when people just wanted to try a few small things (like one lotion, or one bar of soap), test us out first. They didn't want to pay the full shipping for that small of an order. Had we been offering the $1.99 shipping, we probably would have gotten those sales, but we'd have lost more on the rest of our sales. It's a balancing act, but we were completely legal. Just because we offered flat rate shipping (and occasionally free shipping incentive sales) doesn't mean we were scamming the system to do it. Most companies, when they offer free shipping or flat rate shipping, they do so for a reason. If they always offer free shipping, most likely, they've absorbed the extra cost already into the product price. Sorry, I just got a little miffed when you basically said that if we're offering free or flat rate shipping, we must be scamming the system. In probably 99% of the cases out there, they're not. There are always going to be those nasty bad seeds out there that do, but that doesn't mean the rest of us are as well. I'm assuming all of it was meant in jest, I just didn't want someone else to come along, read it, and assume that everyone who offers flat rate shipping is scamming people. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadowbox Posted April 17, 2007 Share Posted April 17, 2007 She's still in business so I guess she didn't get thrown in jail....Her sentencing was actually rescheduled to the 20th (I kept myself on her Yahoo! group to keep abreast of things). Her website still says Free Shipping.. LMFAO...I think she's only shipping certain things for free now...?Sorry to get a little OT, but I used to order from her a lot, though after finding out about this, it completely soured things. :undecided I've done my share of shipping and respect the postal system and wouldn't dream of ripping them off. It's not right and it only ups prices for everyone in the long-run. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TerriWV Posted April 18, 2007 Share Posted April 18, 2007 I but I also know that many people won't purchase from a website without knowing in advance what the shipping charges are going to be. I am one of these people. I want to know up front what my order is going to cost me. If I don't know..I don't order. :undecided Maybe a loss to me, but I don't want any hidden surprises. And I have emailed to ask what shipping would be before I order. I have gotten really high quotes, no response at all, or several days later (up to a week)a reasonable quote, but by that time I have found somewhere else to get the merchandise.Sorry for the hi-jack Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CareBear Posted April 18, 2007 Share Posted April 18, 2007 I don't get why people think it's ok to steal. I just don't get that.Oh drat, this pen should be on my desk at work... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erinmfritz Posted April 18, 2007 Share Posted April 18, 2007 I don't understand how people come up with that kind of idea. I would never even think of it, I must be dumb or just too honest. I hope she gets whats coming to her, people like that ruin it for all of us. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sudsnwicks Posted April 18, 2007 Share Posted April 18, 2007 I don't get why people think it's ok to steal. I just don't get that.Me either. I wonder if the postal rate increase next month has something to do with these postage cheats? Somewhere somehow it's got to be paid for, after all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pinetreecandles Posted April 18, 2007 Share Posted April 18, 2007 You can thank the countless cheats and email for the constant rise in postage prices. The USPS loses millions every year to scammers and plan regular email. As far as regular postage goes, more people are emailing now since it's free so the Post Office has to make up the loss some how.Bottom line, as long as email is free, the cost of 1st class postage will continue to rise and as long as there are scammers, the cost of sending packages will continue to rise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CareBear Posted April 19, 2007 Share Posted April 19, 2007 Think about it - thieves contribute enormously to the cost of everything. Insurance fraud drives the rates through the roof. Shoplifters add significantly to costs in stores. Credit card scammers cause the companies to charge their customers (businesses) more to cover their costs, and those costs are passed down to us. There is NO area in which thievery and fraud are not costing each of us a LOT.If it would only just STOP. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eugenia Posted April 19, 2007 Share Posted April 19, 2007 Well, if you thought about copying labels and trying to get 2 for one, forget it!! I finally got my box from laserinkjetlabels and they had the same tracking number on them when the mailman scanned then. Postmaster called me and they are going to investigate it, and want all the envelopes back! Don't know if it was an accident or not, but someones in trouble!! What did laserinkjetlabels have to say about this? I've ordered from them with no problems at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarsBars Posted April 20, 2007 Share Posted April 20, 2007 CareBear, I aggree. I started out of college working as a manager with a higher end nat'l dept store and we wrote off about 5-10% to shrink depending on the department! YEAH imagine how much that is considering we did several million a month. So just think about how much that adds to the retail prices of the items you purchase, the stores just pass it straight on to the consumers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadowbox Posted April 23, 2007 Share Posted April 23, 2007 Just to update everyone on the fate of Julie Hoffman, the woman who counterfeited in excess of $250,000 in postage, she was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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