Continued issues with International Tracking Sticker labels "EXPORT"
Summary: The discussion addresses ongoing problems with the International Tracking Sticker labels "EXPORT." The topic seems to be generating several interactions among participants, although the detailed content of the messages is unclear. One participant also asks for information about the origin of the stickers in LW. The conversation spans several months and involves different contributors.
Hello,
I’m starting from scratch on this whole international tracking sticker “export” story with a new angle of attack:
1/- provide proof that these stickers were indeed sold by the post office
2/- show, using the general terms and conditions (GTC) documents from La Poste, that all the arguments given by their departments are completely bogus.
There is no reason why we shouldn’t be able to use them since they were sold by La Poste, both in the “pro” version (sheets of 3 stickers) and in the “private individual” version (14 euros for 5 on small individual sheets).
I am in contact with La Poste
and the story is very different:
"...........More specifically, we confirm that this item, for which you are the sender, bears a sticker or postage mark that was not purchased from La Poste........"
"Following up on your questions, we confirm that only postage purchased in our branches or on our online store can be used in our delivery network.
Thus, the tracking you used, and of which you will find the photo, is not sold by La Poste.
For additional information, you will find via the attached link the type of product you must use for tracking your international shipments :
These stickers were indeed sold by La Poste, but now they are annoyed; there are still quite a few in circulation and the current stickers aren’t selling well.
Contrary to what I’ve been able to read here, they are no longer talking about stamps at all but only about tracking ("the tracking you used"), which is only normal, they do not have the right to refuse the use of franc stamps that have not been demonetized and that have “postage value” (La Poste jargon). Forcing us to buy stamps on the website instead of using the ones we already have in stock (even euro stamps with permanent validity would be affected!) is completely illegal; it’s forced selling. They even go so far as to talk about counterfeiting to scare us, but that is totally false, these stickers are completely impossible to forge.
I have already had to reimburse more than 120 euros to my buyers because of their nonsense, not to mention the loss of postage and stickers.
"...........More specifically, we confirm that this item, for which you are the sender, bears a sticker or postage mark that was not purchased from La Poste........"
I replied:
Do you know Wayback Machine, the internet archive? I’m attaching a few screenshots showing that these “export” stickers were sold by La Poste for 14.00 euros for 5 (retail version).
Today, they are becoming rarer so prices have gone up, examples:
https://www.planetemobile.fr/produit/300-etiquettes-sticker-export-suivi-lettre-suivie-la-poste-outi...
He has been selling them for years, nothing is being done to him, he’s an established business, and yet we supposedly wouldn’t have the right to use them!
Sold by La Poste and with no face value, retail and professional versions on sheets of 3, so with no usage limit.
Here is what I sent them: (Wayback Machine / internet archive screenshots included).
I added examples of letters that came back to me.
I’m waiting for their reply.
If I don’t get a satisfactory response, I’ll contact the mediator. This abuse of power must stop, especially since there is no regulation online, no information, nothing; it’s completely arbitrary, totally bogus, and it costs us money!
Update: here:
I’ve added every version of La Poste’s general terms and conditions (and screenshots showing where I found them).
Nowhere is there any mention of banning professional “Export” stickers, the obligation to frank mail with stamps downloaded from the La Poste website, the rejection of mixed euro/franc postage, including in "CGV-COURRIER-COLIS-V01-07-2025" and the 2019 GTC that were attached to the sheets of 3 international “export” tracking stickers, which did indeed come from La Poste.
Given that these stickers are absolutely impossible to falsify because of the complex die-cuts built into the sheets (specially made for La Poste), the “professional” “export” tracking stickers were indeed sold by La Poste, are not counterfeit, and the right to use them should not be restricted by any bogus argument whatsoever.
You will find in these documents the email address to contact to be compensated; count on me to do it and keep you updated.
If that’s not enough, I’ll go higher up; I know how to do it...
arnaud3
·5 months agogiors31
·1 month agoHello
Do you happen to know where the stickers in LW come from?
arnaud3
·5 months agoUntil last year everything went through, but now that’s over, everything is checked. It’s the same for Royal Mail stickers, it’s forbidden. The problem is that you can try your luck, but sending items while wondering what will happen to them isn’t reassuring, especially since if the parcel comes back, the postage is lost. There are still sellers who sell them on eBay; they should simply be banned because they’re fake and they put buyers at risk.
ozd41
·7 months agoAfter rereading the original 2019 text carefully, which are the specific sales conditions for the tracked export product (and not the T&Cs), we come back to the same thing:
Export Suivi is an optional service reserved for
international shipments departing from France, posted
in Priority service by means of franking machines
, prepaid adhesive sticker or
online postage
There are therefore three postage methods, not two.
The first postage method, the franking machine, requires sticking on an office supply label (not prepaid) in order to benefit from tracking.
That is indeed the label in question, and it is what causes the problem.
In the latest price catalogs (since 2023 or 2024, I wouldn’t take the time to check) the notion of Export suivi disappears, in favor of a single product: the international tracked sticker, which is necessarily prepaid and which has been the only one offered for sale since then. There is no doubt that this is at least partly linked to the confusion stemming from the triple postage method we are talking about here.
Office supply labels, still sold on the sites previously cited in this thread, are in any case no longer valid and have no validity anymore.
Remove one site, and two new ones will spring up. That’s the joys of the internet.
Finally, I agree with the previous posts. Given the number of shipments that pass through La Poste every day, checks cannot be exhaustive and necessarily focus on part of the mail, somewhat like customs checks, actually.
The fact that fraudulently postage-paid items (not always deliberately, I grant you) slip through the net does not mean, however, that it is allowed.
In summary, if you did not buy your stickers directly from La Poste, the probability that they are fake, or involved in some other wrongdoing, is high.
You are perfectly free to interpret the various conditions however suits you. If La Poste has not been paid for the service it is being asked to provide, it is entirely free to stop the shipments it deems fraudulent, and I very much doubt that any court would say otherwise.
If you still decide to try legal action, that is entirely your right, and I would be curious to know the final outcome.
ozd41
·7 months agoHello,
The tracked stickers you mention were sold by third-party companies benefiting from La Poste approval.
They were not prepaid and were only intended for users of postage meters, who paid the full postage, tracking included, with their machine.
Attached are the 2019 CSV files for tracked export, available online:
"ARTICLE 5 - PRICES
The customer pays
- postage (letter or parcel as applicable) for the
international shipment,
- the rate for the Export Tracking option,
According to the corresponding rates in force on the day of
deposit.
The price of the Export Tracking option must be paid using
the postage meter when office supplies
are used.
The price of the Export Tracking option is included in the
online postage rate International priority letter
with tracking or International priority parcel with tracking. "
So you are wrong, sorry.
choumac72
·7 months agoGood evening, are you sure about that? What are your sources? But that would be an explanation, because in that case I really got taken for a ride.
I also just got a response on a tracked international shipment for "incorrect postage"; it was returned with acknowledgment of receipt and the post office didn’t charge me anything. I’ve already used these stickers for shipments abroad,
The shipment weighed less than 100 grams, so I put 4.50 euros + a tracking sticker, but I got the return on Saturday: "incorrect postage" with no further explanation.
I bought these stickers in June 2024 on Ebay for my professional activity (on that site I’m mostly a buyer). I heard on this forum that they were fake, but I didn’t believe it. But if what you’re telling me is true, I bought nothing but thin air.
I still have a hard time believing that Ebay lets sellers like that get away with it. I also saw that it’s still going on; several lots of these stickers were sold on the Ebay site in December.
https://www.ebay.fr/itm/267513660443?_skw=export+suivi&itmmeta=01KD1B50BCZR4P547P75GW45EQ&hash=item3e490e841b:g:JIoAAeSwJoVo490R&itmprp=enc%3AAQAKAAAA8FkggFvd1GGDu0w3yXCmi1fFVZVpplAm4fgbvWaYAhuiRsTc8NUsmeC9k6QY4BFGBclMizmEq%2F7Gx4Lxqn7ufXXgqf%2Bbx6jiZoBGGR2fxX2C4v5b8wGBo7y4xE%2ByYynTV6JKpgC8OLVbs18i%2B2N1mj0lY41AwxpQjeZnR2uiNTPEqI0Zkz9kBY1AKi7osbG3WmmezHAQ7rtRcGAZo8bt5GhHz1MAkOKkDUVIr1Q6W7Kots9ebHy2bwnVV%2FlJu1yKMkt63FF9gqLS%2FFGNYef2%2Feu71Z0wahIjpjJ71xehDwja1QkSVWEYxY%2Ba%2Fbl6Zb2vNw%3D%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR-yFlKvoZg
If you’re right, I’ll hold the site to account; that’s not normal.
Best regards
Philippe
ozd41
·7 months agoHello,
I am citing an official text that can be consulted.
Believe me, this is indeed the issue.
The nuance is important: these are not fakes, but stickers intended for one use and massively misused by scammers for another.
If you think Ebay is clean on everything..
legascon3
OP7 months agoHello,
Once you say "The tracked stickers you mention were sold by third-party companies approved by La Poste."
Another time "diverted in bulk by scammers"
Do the people who bought them here have better terms of use than those who bought them on Ebay or **bleep** ?
legascon3
OP7 months agoHello,
Ebay is not the issue, it is not forbidden to resell anything you own if the item is not illegal or prohibited for sale...
You use the same labels as I do.
(Right now, Royal Mail labels from England are being sold, I spoke with a seller who tells me they work very well. I found tracking numbers for these stickers in the listings, I tested them on the postal service website, and they are apparently "accepted"!)
Which city are you in, what did you affix postage with, and to which country was your mail being sent?
I’m asking because:
- Only shipments over 20 grams come back to me, all the others "go through" (strange, isn’t it?)
- The only destination countries targeted are Italy (today I use mondial relay to home delivery while losing quite a bit in the process) and Finland. All the other countries "go through".
Which makes me think that only one sorting center (2 max) filters this mail and even then, only the ones the automatic machine rejects so they can be sorted "by hand" because they are too thick or heavier than the others and need checking. This sorting center is somewhere between my place and Italy (Roissy?) Mail to Germany, Belgium, Hungary, Slovenia... does not go through this sorting center.
It’s completely upside down.
toomanycomicmagazines
·7 months agoWhat tracking number format do Royal Mail labels have? More than a year ago, lots of them were being sold on competing platforms; they were actually return labels that had been repurposed from their original use, and the postal service ended up confiscating all shipments using those postage labels. It took a pretty hefty sum to get them back (in my case it wasn’t worth it, I simply refunded my customers).
legascon3
OP7 months agoIn my opinion, this won't work for long!
And besides, just because the post office website "takes" them doesn't mean it's going to go smoothly in real life!
These are these ones.
JP
choumac72
·7 months agoGood evening, the mail was for Australia, I used euro stamps for postage.
the seller said that these export tracking ones were worth 2.80 euros at the post office, so in the end they were worth nothing, just the price of the paper?, if that's the case there is deception, no?
kind regards
jean-ler-34
·7 months agoerror, please delete this post
legascon3
OP7 months agoI had mistakenly used another browser logged into an account that isn't mine...
Hello,
"The price of the Export Suivi option must be paid using
the postage meter when using office
supplies."
If you use an office database for your addresses and the software prints letters or envelopes for you (bulk mailings, for example), the use of a postage meter is mandatory. This does not apply to one-off uses (besides, not all companies have a postage meter).
In the preamble on the same document:
"Export Suivi is an optional service reserved for
international shipments departing from France stamped
with Priority service by means of postage meters,
prepaid adhesive sticker or
online postage (Montimbrenligne
entreprise). These shipments may consist
of correspondence items (letters) or
goods (parcels)."
Postage meters are not the only sources of postage.
Note that I also received postage-paid returns with an "online postage (Montimbrenligne
entreprise)"
On the other hand, these terms and conditions talk about postage in "priority service" which no longer exists.
In any case, these terms and conditions are obsolete, the TERMS AND CONDITIONS VERSION NUMBER 18 OF 01/07/25 (I can assume that the latest ones cancel and replace all previous ones):
"4.7.1 Postage at the current rate
The customer pays, no later than the time the item is deposited, the postage due at the rate in force on the date of deposit and corresponding to the nature of the item. The postage paid remunerates the service of routing and delivering a postal item to the first address mentioned on the item,..............."
There is no longer any mention of a postage meter or an obligation to buy stamps online.