Yes, I’m deep in e-commerce and fraudulent labels are all over the place. Even Amazon, 3rd party sellers are using these fake labels to sell items for cheaper and win the buy box. Even UPS has this issue.

I get that they have reverse engineered how the numbers are created, but how are they showing up in USPS and UPS databases?

Are shipping platforms like shipengine getting these labels pre-made and this fake label seller has reverse engineered how these tracking numbers are created programmatically and are essentially using the ones allocated to these big shipping platforms?

And the only plausible way they got around is likely recycle previously used real tracking numbers because USPS is inept (the thing USPS has been constant and consistent is raising prices).

We would never know how since that's the part USPS redacted heavily.

I wish Anthropic/OpenAI FDE take over USPS IT altogether.

> how are they showing up in USPS and UPS databases?

Are you overestimating their validation capabilities? Maybe the validation just isn't that accurate or isn't always done, for efficiency.

I once desperately needed a (FedEx or UPS) package that was delayed. Tracking showed it in a facility about an hour away so I asked if I could pick it up there. I was told: 'It's not really there; our (customer-facing) tracking shows where packages should be.'

Their image of super-efficiency is for selling themselves. (If you are deep in e-commerce, you probably already know.)