Counterfeit barcode stamps furore carries echoes of Horizon scandal

One of Royal Mail’s recently introduced barcode stamps. But how can we find out if it’s genuine? Photograph: Thomas Faull/Alamy

I received a card through the post from a friend, along with a demand for a £5 fee, as Royal Mail claimed the barcoded stamp was counterfeit. The joke is she says she was sent this stamp by Royal Mail when she exchanged her old ones for the new barcoded kind under its Stamp Swap Out scheme.
SR, Sevenoaks, Kent

SS of Robertsbridge, East Sussex also received a letter with strings attached – in her case a £2.50 fee for “insufficient postage”. However, when the envelope was handed over, the stamp had been marked in pen as counterfeit. “The sender was an anxious elderly lady from church, and I find it impossible to think she’d buy a stamp from anywhere other than her local post office,” she writes.