Surprising Fact: Most Vietnamese Are Using Fake Watches

The watch market in Vietnam is being invaded by countless fake watches along with sophisticated scams that make it difficult for users to recognize.

The watch market in Vietnam in recent years has been "boiling" due to the trend of playing and collecting watches in society, regardless of age; but are the watches that Vietnamese people are using 100% genuine, high-quality goods?!

In recent years, anyone can find and buy all kinds of watches in any store, on many personal Facebook pages with all kinds of different prices, each person “releases” a different price for a watch but all have a common label, which is “guaranteed genuine goods”. So, are these stores and those individuals really selling “genuine goods” as they say, or are they just selling “genuine Chinese goods”?

To answer this question, when directly contacting Ms. NTH - the owner of a Facebook account specializing in selling watches, it was known that the watches she sells are genuine, have proper boxes and are hand-carried by relatives from the US, the quality is guaranteed but because they are hand-carried goods, the 1-for-1 warranty period if there is any damage is completely non-existent.

However, according to research, there are also many watch stores that are willing to "invite customers" with the words: "12-month global warranty". But if after a few months or a year the product has a problem, that store is also willing to "ignore" the customer.

Currently, it is very difficult for consumers to distinguish between genuine and fake watches. Watch technicians also recommend: Checking the code on the documents helps consumers feel more secure, but the code is transferred from genuine watches to fake watches very simply. Fashion watches almost all use the same code.

For example, Tissot watch brand, with more than 16,000 authorized dealers, distributors, and genuine watch shops worldwide of the Tissot brand, the global warranty of this brand is managed very strictly.

If you bring your genuine Tissot watch for warranty at any of those 16,000 locations, first of all, you must have a warranty card, user manual, accompanying accessories, and a stamp from Tissot or an authorized dealer.

However, in Vietnam, there are many advertisements for exclusive distributors, genuine watch stores... If that is true, then perhaps Vietnam is the place with the most exclusive distributors of not only watches but many other things in the world.

And Vietnamese people just believe, buy, and use them, but most of us don't understand how using fake watches will affect our health.

Experts have warned that using fake watches can cause skin ulcers or even cancer because fake watches are made of poor quality materials and may have gone through many stages of using other chemicals that can affect users in the long term.

Not only affecting users, counterfeit watch trading also greatly affects businesses that produce and distribute genuine watches. According to statistics from the World Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, each year counterfeit watches cause losses of more than 20,000 billion VND.

Many types of fake watches are pointed out by experts.

So, how did fake watches sneak into the Vietnamese market? In many cases, Customs and Market Management have discovered and destroyed hundreds of billions of dong worth of fake watches from containers registered as other goods. But in fact, all of them are fake watches from China that are “smuggled” into Vietnam and if successful, they will be smuggled to Cambodia…

In fact, the profit from selling fake watches is huge. For example, a genuine watch costs 10 million VND, but for only 1 million or a few hundred thousand VND, traders can order hundreds or thousands of watches in China.

There is no difference at all, from the second hand to the internal mechanism, even the serial number. And only watch experts can tell the difference, but nowadays counterfeiters are so sophisticated that even experts are stumped by the fake watches they produce.

In Vietnam, there are many watch experts, but perhaps the most experienced and dedicated is Dang Van Truong, owner of the well-known Truong Omega brand. He specializes in appraising and repairing Swiss watches and has been certified in Switzerland.

Mr. Truong said that his main job is to appraise and repair watches, and he has had the opportunity to meet and work with many other watch experts around the world, directly appraising many types of watches, both fake and real.

And he affirmed that, for Vietnamese consumers to be able to distinguish between a real and a fake watch is a problem that even experts like him sometimes "sweat profusely". Because the level of counterfeiting watches has reached such a sophisticated level, these are super fakes, it is difficult to distinguish between real and fake.

Mr. Truong said that there are many types of fake watches, type 1, type 2 and type 3 fakes depending on the buyer. But in Vietnam, there are still a few watch brands that have been "gone" for a long time, those can only be fake watches.

The watch market in Vietnam is in turmoil due to countless counterfeit goods.

Chinese manufacturers also have their own ways to circumvent the law, in order to legitimize the brand. For example, they can spend money to buy back the Stuhrling watch brand but then cheat by replacing the genuine machine with a Chinese mechanical machine but still advertise it as Swiss, making users misunderstand the origin and source.

This is also a way to deceive consumers by “advertising a sheep’s head but selling dog meat”, because many people only follow the brand name and do not pay attention to the origin of the product they are using.

Mr. Truong added that now, Chinese machines are very cheap but the quality is poor but they are still sold at very high prices, this is a great bargain for traders. The more commonly used watches such as Casio, Tissot, Rolex... are counterfeited more and more.

According to Mr. Truong, the watch market in Vietnam is being invaded by countless fake watches, and the tricks of fraud and counterfeiting are becoming more and more sophisticated and difficult to detect. However, to ensure that consumers feel secure when using genuine products, Mr. Truong recommends buying watches with proper papers and origins and buying them at reputable, authorized stores.

Must be disassembled to distinguish high-end fake watches

It can be seen that the watch market in Vietnam is a very lucrative business for manufacturers and traders of counterfeit and poor quality goods, causing significant impacts on consumers and other genuine goods businesses.

But to manage and thoroughly resolve this problem is extremely difficult because first, we are right next to the "counterfeit goods capital" of China, and our handling mechanism is still loose and not strict, the highest administrative fine is only 50 million, or 15 years in prison.

The current trend of playing with watches in society is also a reason why the market is flooded with fake goods. Of course, many people pay more attention to the origin, source and quality of the items they buy, but that is only a small number.

According to VOV