Gold scam exposed! "Chow Tai Fook" and "Lao Fengxiang" were faked, and the cost was only a few dozen yuan

preface

It is said that the prosperity of antiques, the troubled times of gold, with the tension of the international situation, the price of gold has repeatedly broken through new highs, but no matter how expensive the price is, it still can't stop people from buying it.

It is precisely this situation that allows some criminals to use counterfeiting to deceive consumers, and the well-known gold brands of "Chow Tai Fook", "Chow Sang Sang" and "Lao Fengxiang" have become the hardest hit areas of counterfeiting.

What are the tricks of gold fraud? How can we avoid and identify it?

Gold counterfeiting

It is said that antiques in prosperous times, gold in troubled times, and gold as a precious metal that people love, are often used to make jewelry, invest and even as a symbol of wealth.

And in recent years, with the continuous tension of the international situation, the price of gold has been rising, and this has also affected the price of gold, especially some gold jewelry stores, which has caused people to rush wildly.

After all, there are too many single and unmarried young people now, and some of them are finally married to their daughters-in-law.

The "hardware" here is not what we usually call a hardware store, but five kinds of gold jewelry, such as gold necklaces, gold rings, and gold bracelets, which are inevitable if you want to get married smoothly.

But the current price of gold, any five pieces will cost tens of thousands of yuan, if the number of grams is relatively large, it is likely to cost hundreds of thousands or even hundreds of thousands, which makes some people target some small gold jewelry stores.

But we should pay attention to the fact that although these small gold jewelry stores sell cheaper than brand stores, we should also pay attention to the authenticity of these gold.

Because the phenomenon of gold counterfeiting has existed since ancient times, and with the continuous progress of science and technology, the means of gold counterfeiting have become more and more sophisticated, and even we have difficulty distinguishing through ordinary methods.

One of the most common forms of gold counterfeiting is actually "gold-clad silver", which involves thinly wrapping gold around the outer layer of silver, which looks like pure gold jewelry, but in fact it is silver on the inside.

But this is actually the best way to distinguish it, because silver is much less dense than gold, so we only need to pass a weighing or density test to easily identify a fake.

And with the increasing number of counterfeit gold jewellery on the market, consumers are becoming more and more vigilant, and many people have learned how to distinguish the authenticity through some simple means, so this method has also been eliminated by scammers.

Nowadays, counterfeiters mainly use modern technology to cover the surface of other metals with a thin layer of gold through electroplating technology, so that the whole jewelry looks like pure gold.

This kind of gold-plated jewelry is almost indistinguishable from real gold in appearance, and it is difficult to identify even some conventional inspection methods, and there may be people here who are not able to detect it by density.

However, if the counterfeiter uses a metal with a very close density to gold for electroplating, it is very difficult to detect it, such as gold jewelry plated with a rare metal called "rhenium", which is almost impossible to distinguish with ordinary detection instruments.

At this point, many consumers have also learned well, no longer go to those unknown small gold stores to buy, in order to ensure that the gold they buy is genuine, these people began to buy from well-known gold jewelry stores such as "Lao Fengxiang" and "Chow Tai Fook".

As everyone knows, even the gold jewelry purchased in these stores may be fake, and the certificates issued by them may also be fake.

So where do most of these fake gold jewellery come from? Why is it that the gold purchased in those well-known gold jewellery stores is also counterfeit?

The secret of the counterfeiting industry chain is revealed

When it comes to Shenzhen Shuibei, many people may not know what this place is, but as long as you are in the gold jewelry business, you should know something about this place.

Because this is the largest and most concentrated gold processing and wholesale market in the mainland, it is also the hardest hit area of domestic gold jewelry counterfeiting, and almost every link of fake gold jewelry produced here is supported by special "service providers" from production to packaging to sales.

It is precisely for this reason that the jewelry with certificates in well-known gold stores such as "Lao Fengxiang" and "Chow Tai Fook" may also be fakes.

The reason is that some unscrupulous merchants in Shuibei can mark the products with the steel seals of well-known gold brands such as "Chow Tai Fook" and "Lao Fengxiang", and even make the logo of "pure gold 999".

The cost of making these stamps is almost negligible, and it only costs a few yuan a piece to package fake gold as "genuine", making consumers mistakenly believe that they are buying high-quality gold jewelry.

In addition, today's gold plating technology allows for precise control of the thickness of the gold plating according to the customer's needs, and counterfeiters only need to coat the surface with a thin layer of gold, which looks like gold on the outside and other metals that are worthless on the inside.

Even some merchants can use technical means to wrap a little real gold on the surface of gold jewelry, which is so thin that it is almost imperceptible, however, such "fake gold" can pass some ordinary testing instruments, and even deceive the identification of some brand counters.

As for the institutional testing certificate, it is not a problem for many commodity inspections, and they are able to use PS technology to produce a fake certificate that is almost exactly the same as the certificate issued by a formal testing agency.

This kind of one-stop counterfeiting service from products to anti-counterfeiting labels to test reports, not to mention ordinary consumers, even many consumers who are more knowledgeable about gold are easy to get into pits.

There are still many consumers who believe that "Chow Tai Fook" and "Lao Fengxiang" are big brands after all, with a relatively good reputation and reputation, and should not sell fake products.

If you really think so, you are very wrong, because many brands of gold jewelry stores on the market today are not directly operated by these brands, but franchised stores.

After all, the franchise model can help these brands expand rapidly and quickly occupy the market, but the disadvantage is that there are loopholes in the management of these franchise stores.

This leads to some franchisees in the process of operation, do not pay attention to maintaining the reputation of the brand, but use the brand's popularity to seek short-term economic benefits, which may lead to the appearance of fakes.

According to relevant data, 96% of the "Lao Fengxiang" stores on the market are franchised stores, and the franchise ratio of Chow Tai Fook and Liuliufu is also more than 90%.

This data shows that 90% of these stores in the county where you or I live may be franchisees, and what is even more surprising is that the reporter once did an experiment to send some fake gold jewelry stamped with "Chow Tai Fook" and "Lao Fengxiang" to the brand counter for identification.

The results showed that some store staff judged the authenticity of the gold jewellery based on its appearance alone, and even misjudged the fake gold jewellery as genuine, which not only caused consumers to have a lot of doubts when buying gold, but also exacerbated the proliferation of counterfeit goods.

How to circumvent it

Since it is so difficult to distinguish counterfeit gold, we should choose the right purchase channel when buying, and the most ideal way is to choose a brand store.

Many people may think that they can intuitively see the quality of the product offline, but they can't see it if they buy online, in fact, we can first choose their favorite style from the Internet, and then go offline to see, and finally choose to buy from the Internet.

However, it should be noted that online shopping is not just looking for a store, but looking for the direct stores or official flagship stores of those big brands, as for third-party channels or purchasing live broadcast rooms, it is best not to go.

In addition to the correct channels, there is also to pay attention to the preservation of invoices, certificates, etc., these are legal documents to prove that you buy goods, once you encounter product quality problems or after-sales service problems, with these certificates can effectively protect their rights and interests.

Of course, sometimes we will be fooled by the marketing of merchants, such as fixed price gold, which may refer to the high cost of charging in the name of process fees and design fees.

Consumers often feel lost in the face of these costs, do not know whether the gold jewelry they buy is worth the price, in order to avoid suffering losses when buying gold jewelry, consumers must clearly ask the merchant before buying the gram weight and process costs of gold jewelry.

Finally, there is the problem of identifying the real and fake, gold is not magnetic, so we can simply take out the magnet and try it after buying, real gold will not be adsorbed by magnets.

However, the safest way is to buy gold jewelry and send it to a nationally certified testing agency for testing in time to ensure that the authenticity of the gold is undoubted.

Information source: Henan Metropolis Channel 2025-03-13