Formula to identify fake goods

Every time Tet comes, the market is at its busiest season of the year, which is also the time when the production and distribution of fake, counterfeit, and poor quality goods explodes. In the market, especially consumer goods, goods are often imported from many places, with unknown origins, making it difficult for consumers to distinguish between genuine and fake goods, and easily affecting both their wallets and health...

A trustworthy product must have complete and clear product and business information. Therefore, distinguishing genuine and fake goods by barcode is becoming more and more popular. On the internet, a popular way to distinguish fake goods by barcode calculation formula is: "Sum of odd plus total of even multiplied by three plus the last number must be 0".

According to the principle "Each manufacturing enterprise is only granted 1 enterprise code and each product also has only 1 barcode for the entire product life cycle". Barcode is a type of barcode that must be registered and licensed by the GS1 barcode organization, including numbers, which show information related to the product, including: country code, enterprise code, product code and finally the check code. There are 2 types of barcodes including 8 numbers and barcodes including 13 numbers; in which, the first 3 digits of the barcode indicate the country of origin of the product, for example, if the first 3 digits are 893, this product is manufactured in Vietnam, and if it is 690, 691, 692, 693, it is from China, 880 is from Korea, 885 is from Thailand, 000-019 is from the US...

Counterfeit Toshiba rice cookers sold on Quang Trung Street (Vinh City). Photo: Viet Phuong

Any business or individual can make counterfeit goods, but usually does not dare to fake the barcode of the real goods, because if they do, the company that produces the real goods will sue them in court for stealing and copying the barcode with very heavy penalties, especially when that country has a strong, independent judicial system and it is difficult to "run the case"...

For example: Check if a Korean barcode is genuine through the following specific 13-digit barcode: 8809013350421
Sum of odd numbers (except the last number): A=8+0+0+3+5+4 = 20
Sum of even numbers: B=8+9+1+3+0+2=23
C=A + Bx3 = 20+ 23x3= 109
D= C + 1 (the number 1 is in the last 13th position) = 109+1=120;
This result 120 has a tail of 0. So this is the real thing.

In addition, genuine, good products always have quality, color, hardness, softness, elasticity and characteristic scent according to standards publicly announced by the manufacturer and buyers can distinguish by observing, comparing and even asking to try.

To combat counterfeiting, protect consumers and ensure a healthy business environment, it is necessary to have correct and unified awareness and synchronous participation of the political system, proactiveness of authorities and people to create pressure for businesses and traders to consider ensuring consumer rights, rights for people and customers as both a goal and a driving force and a decisive solution for sustainable business development of themselves and society.

On the one hand, the State needs to strengthen the capacity of formal and informal institutions, state and non-state, from central to local levels; perfect the apparatus and clearly assign tasks and specific individual responsibilities, strengthen connections and close coordination with each other, promote propaganda, inspection and examination, establish and introduce switchboards, hotline numbers, news sites, promptly identify, notify and handle violations of the law to protect the rights of consumers and legitimate businesses.

Smuggled cosmetics seized by Nghe An Market Management Force. Photo: Viet Phuong

On the other hand, people also need to be fully aware of their rights and obligations, overcome the fear of complaints, procedures, long processing times, high costs, etc. to proactively complain, denounce, disseminate information and enforce consumer rights, create strong enough social and market pressure, allowing to prevent and severely punish wrongdoings of businesses and traders who deliberately violate the law and disregard social interests.

In addition, associations and each enterprise need to promote ethics, business culture, and social responsibility towards providing complete, public, and convenient information about their products to users, ensuring consumer rights, considering it as a driving force for stable and sustainable development of enterprises and the country...