Running an online store comes with its fair share of headaches. One you might not expect? Fake or stolen shipping labels. It’s a bummer, but it happens. Someone gets a label they shouldn’t have, and suddenly, your package is somewhere you didn’t send it. This isn’t theoretical—it hits small businesses hard. We’ve had to deal with it, and the first time, it cost us time and money.
If you sell online, you need to know how this works. Too many merchants assume carriers will catch problems. They won’t always. The way the box travels might surprise you. If you don’t pay attention to labels, you could be losing packages—and money—to people cutting corners.
What Fake or Stolen Shipping Labels Look Like
No carrier openly sells fake labels. The problem comes from convinced freelancers who “borrow” an account tied to a business they’ve worked for. Some resell access to their shipping platform to others looking for cheap or free shipping. Or someone just guesses an account number and hopes for the best.
Labels from these sources can look real at first glance. The barcodes scan, but when your package gets processed by a carrier like USPS or FedEx, something’s off. Have you ever sent a package that went missing with no explanation? That could be why.
The warning signs aren’t obvious unless you know what to look for. The labeling software connected to stolen accounts crashes sometimes because the real owner has canceled access but didn’t change their password fast enough (or never got around to it). If your software is acting weird while printing labels, treat that as a red flag.
Why This Is More Common Than You Think
People think businesses lose packages because of carrier mistakes—but that’s usually not the whole story. Someone is taking advantage of outdated security or poor password habits on small-business accounts.
For example, if your e-commerce store accepts returns using prepaid USPS labels, those can get copied during return printing and then reused for new shipments without triggering a warning in your carrier account (if they’re not properly serialized). And yes, this happens more often than businesses know.
The other big culprit? Marketplace sellers using bulk-shipping platforms like PayPal or Shippo that allow label generation without direct integration to your store’s payment system.
How to Protect Your Business from Fake Shipping Labels
The fix isn’t complicated; it just takes some discipline from your team. Start by putting shipping-label access behind two-factor authentication (or requiring admin approval for every label printed if possible). Taking this step closes almost all pharmacy-style order-fulfillment scams at the source.
- Only assign one shipping platform login per person in your business. It’s easy for employees—or contractors—to share credentials without realizing how slippery a slope this can be.
- Avoid reprinting labels for returned items on the same account where orders come in; use a separate return label system instead.
- Audit your shipping platforms regularly for old user accounts tied to ex-employees or freelancers.
- Monitor account usage reports from FedEx, UPS, or USPS to flag unusual activity (like excess return-label usage months after you’ve stopped accepting returns).
- If Cara in accounting says she’s been getting login errors when printing labels that morning while Sarah in customer support logs in fine at the same time on another computer… check both accounts immediately.
The risks of ignoring poor shipping-label security are real, but so is the willingness of problem customers to exploit them.” We paid $1600+ in damage from one account hijack before we figured out what was going on.” Fortunately this wasn’t some massive fraud ring; just five neighbors working together who should have stuck with poring over post office boxes instead of trying this scam game.”