Never Buy Stamps on These 10 Websites

A typo in your search bar or one trusting click could get you scammed.

Akamai, a cloud technology company, recently analyzed data about malicious websites masquerading as legit United States Postal Service pages. According to Akamai, USPS is a common target for phishing — a type of scam where fraudsters mimic a legitimate company to take your personal information such as credit card numbers.

Scammers are able to make websites that look like they’re associated with the USPS, but that’s far from the case. Paying close attention to a site’s URL can help you dodge malicious websites.

The most popular malicious and non-legitimate domains include:

• usps-post.world
• uspspost.me
• usps-postoffices.top
• stamps-usps.online
• usps-shop.shop
• uspspostoffice.top
• uspspostoffices.top
• usps-post.today
• uspshelp.store
• usps-pst.xyz

Although the above are the most popular over the five-month period Akamai studied, they aren’t the only fraudulent USPS websites out there.

The legitimate website domain for USPS is usps.com. To shop for stamps, you can also visit their online store directly or purchase from retailers like Office Depot.

Scammers will include “USPS” in their fake domains so that they look legitimate to users who may not know otherwise.

Scammers will often disseminate these malicious links through text messages. They may tell you that there’s an issue with a package delivery, or promote a big sale on items like stamps, and provide a link for you to shop or to resolve the issue.

The number of visitors that these sites get apparently ticks up during the holidays. Scammers know that people are ordering and sending mail more frequently during those periods, and that they may be more susceptible to fraudulent website scams.

Don’t be fooled by genuine-looking web pages. Scammers can make very convincing websites, which is why it’s important to pay attention to the web address before inputting any sensitive information.