Checking wine and vodka products using barcodes. How to check the authenticity of a tax stamp on alcohol

Currently, the number of cases of detection of counterfeit alcohol has increased. To strengthen control and eliminate this unpleasant fact, the excise stamp was invented long ago.

They have already learned how to counterfeit such quality guarantees, since the real brand was not created to be fully protected, but only partially due to its high cost. The rest of the space is filled with the protection of simple applications, so they are easily counterfeited. This article will talk about this brand and give advice on how to avoid getting caught in counterfeit products. The main emphasis will be on the legislation of the Russian Federation.

What is excise tax?

Many people know that an excise tax is a tax on goods that are in great demand. An excise stamp on alcohol shows that this product has passed government inspections and taxes were paid on its manufacture. All employees trading enterprises have manuals against which compliance with the quality guarantee mark is verified. Such manuals are also issued to inspectors who carry out authenticity checks. Therefore, at present we can safely say that a serious fight is being waged against counterfeit products.

Penalties for falsifying excise stamps

For the production of counterfeit marks guaranteeing the quality of alcoholic products, criminal liability is assigned in accordance with Article 176 of the Criminal Code for cases of the manufacture and sale of counterfeit banknotes and securities.

Criminals are subject to a fine of 300 to 500 minimum wages. wages. For enterprises selling alcoholic products that do not have a tax stamp affixed or are affixed but counterfeit, deprivation of the right to trade or a fine is provided. The legislation also provides for administrative and criminal liability for employees guilty of illegal alcohol trafficking.

How to spot a fake excise stamp?

Real brand contains many degrees of protection, therefore, to create a copy of it, large costs and time are required for its development. In general, people involved in the illegal production of alcohol make only those levels of protection that can be counterfeited. If one of the protection marks is missing or does not meet standards, the product is one hundred percent illegal.

What you should always pay attention to when buying alcohol

Place of sale. You should not buy alcohol from dubious outlets. Buy alcohol only from trusted stores that monitor their reputation.
Price. Good alcohol cannot be cheap, but you can also buy a surrogate for a high price. Therefore, after seeing the price, you need to check the following indicators.
Appearance of the container. High-quality alcohol is bottled in unusual bottles, they can be with relief inscriptions or drawings. The wrapper must be evenly glued and contain all the information about the product.
Excise stamp. The stamp is printed on paper specially designed for this purpose with fibers that have color. Uneven gluing of the stamp is not allowed.

This quality mark is checked by an organization with a license to sell alcohol. There is a single social portal for the alcohol market for buyers.

Self-authentication of the mark

If you are concerned about your health and the quality of the products you consume, then checking the excise stamp on alcohol will not be difficult for you. To do this, you need to either compare the guarantee mark on the bottle you purchased with a sample of the genuine one or turn to the special “Anti-Counterfeit Alco” application, which has been launched in our country since 2016. This application is available to smartphone users. You can also use it to find out about verified places where alcohol is sold.

When checking yourself, you need to pay attention to the number excise stamp. It repeats numbers from 1 to 33, they are common to all alcoholic products. When reading the characters on the stamp, you can find out the following information:

Name.
Strength of the drink.
Volume.
Product type.
Manufacturer.
Importer.

Large retail outlets have special devices for reading stamps and checking their authenticity. They are called scanners; if necessary, you can ask the administrator, he should provide them to you.

Extension of the validity period of old-style excise stamps

By decision of the Russian government, it was decided that the old excise stamp will be valid for the sale of imported alcohol until September 1, 2017.

The Russian Ministry of Finance approached the government with such a proposal, and it was accepted positively, as many requests were received from organizations engaged in the retail sale and circulation of alcoholic beverages.

The prices of excise stamps have increased significantly since 2016. New requirements were also imposed on their samples. The degree of protection has been strengthened to make it more difficult for underground workers to produce counterfeit tax stamps. IN Lately The sale of counterfeit goods via the Internet has become more frequent. In order to avoid such cases, and there is an excise tax stamp on alcohol, it is necessary to check it, and this will help to avoid trouble.

The danger of poisoning from low-quality alcohol

Counterfeit alcoholic drinks may contain methanol - this is a dangerous substance for humans, which, if consumed by a person, leads to death.

It is possible to understand whether methyl alcohol is present in alcohol. There are common methods for this, such as setting fire to alcohol. When methanol burns, it reflects a green flame.

The first signs of methanol poisoning are general malaise, nausea, and dizziness. Then there is blurred vision, loss of consciousness and high blood pressure. With such symptoms, you must call an ambulance.

Trust but check

With all the weapons and knowledge about what levels of protection are used on alcohol, there is no guarantee that you won’t come across an expensive fake with a quality mark skillfully applied to it. It’s good that an excise stamp for alcohol has been invented, which anyone can check, especially in our time of high information capabilities. Be vigilant and monitor your health, because poisoning with counterfeit products can have the most serious consequences.

Sales of alcohol and tobacco products in the Russian Federation are possible only if there is a special marking on the product. In this article we will look at how to check the excise stamp for alcohol and tobacco products and establish the authenticity of the purchased product.

Excise and special stamps for excisable goods

In order to control the turnover of excisable goods, the Russian Federation provides for mandatory labeling of alcohol and tobacco products.

Both excisable goods produced on the territory of the Russian Federation and products imported into the territory of Russia according to the customs import procedure are subject to mandatory labeling.

The labeling procedure for alcohol and tobacco products is described in the table below:

Marking order	Alcohol products		Tobacco products
Origin of excisable goods	Product made in Russia		Product made in Russia	Product imported from abroad
Type of marking		Excise stamps	Federal special stamps (FSM)	Excise stamps
Authority issuing excise stamps/FSM	Federal Service for Alcohol Market Regulation (FSRAR)		Fiscal Tax Service (FTS)	Federal Customs Service (FCS)
Cost of excise stamps/FSM	RUB 1,850/1000 pcs.	1,700 rub./1000 pcs.	150 rub./1000 pcs.	150 rub./1000 pcs.

The sale of alcohol and tobacco products without excise stamps is prohibited in Russia. At the same time, many unscrupulous businessmen, in order to make a quick profit, sell counterfeit excisable goods with fake excise stamps. The purchase and use of such products may result in irreversible consequences for the buyer. In connection with the increasing incidence of sales of counterfeit excisable products, additional control measures have been introduced at the state level to allow consumers to verify the authenticity of the labeling of alcohol and cigarettes.

Control of labeling of alcoholic products

The excise stamp for alcoholic products must contain:

Name ( Russian Federation, Excise stamp);
characteristics of the goods in accordance with the Classifier (Strong alcoholic drinks up to 0.5 l);
hologram;
digital product code.

The digital code of alcoholic products indicated on the excise stamp is deciphered in the following order:

the first 6 characters (1-6) are the same for all types of alcoholic products;
characters 7 to 19 define the code according to which you can make a request to the Unified State Automated Information System;
symbols 20 – 31 define a series of alcoholic products;
characters after 31 are unique to each bottle.

If the actual characteristics of the product do not correspond to the decoding of the excise stamp code, this is indisputable evidence that this is a counterfeit.

For the purpose of additional control over the circulation of alcoholic products, FSRAR provides consumers with the opportunity to check excise and federal special stamps online. In order to verify the authenticity of the purchased goods, the buyer only needs to enter the full number of the excise stamp or FSM on the official website of the FSRAR (http://fsrar.ru/checkmark). After entering the brand number, the buyer must click the “Submit” button. Based on the request, FSRAR compares the brand number entered by the buyer with the Unified State Automated Information System database, and then provides the information to the buyer in the form of text on the screen. If the entered brand number is not in the database, the electronic resource interface will inform the consumer that the brand is invalid.

Checking excise stamps on cigarettes and tobacco

Unlike alcoholic products, the buyer of cigarettes, tobacco, and other tobacco products cannot use Internet resources to verify the authenticity of the labeling of excisable goods.

At the same time, organizations engaged in the wholesale and retail sale of tobacco products can check the product labeling visually, as well as by requesting information from the Unified State Automated Information System.

A series of excise stamps, consisting of letters and numbers, is placed to the right of the frame with the coat of arms of the Russian Federation and a hologram. You can visually decipher the series of excise stamps for tobacco products as follows:

A series of stamps used for goods originating in and imported from the territories of foreign states that are members of the Commonwealth of Independent States and the EAEU begin with the letter “C”. To the left of the frame is the inscription “CIS” vertically.
A series of stamps used for goods originating in and imported from the territories of foreign states outside the Commonwealth of Independent States and the EAEU begins with the letter “I”. To the left of the frame is the inscription “IMPORT” vertically.
The type of tobacco product on the excise stamp is written in Russian, in accordance with the nomenclature:

cigarettes with filter
cigarettes without filter, cigarettes;
cigars;
cigarillos
pipe tobacco;
smoking tobacco.

The frame with the coat of arms of the Russian Federation indicates the number of cigarettes in the package (or the weight of tobacco). The letters to the left of the coat of arms are the abbreviation of the stamp manufacturer (“MGT” means that the stamp was made at the Moscow State Sign Printing House).

No dubious shops or run-of-the-mill stalls. Buy alcohol from retail chains that monitor their reputation and carefully select suppliers. Roughly speaking, if there is expired goods on the shelves in a supermarket, then the alcohol there must be chosen with particular pickiness.

When buying alcohol, you should always be given a receipt, and ideally, ask for a passport, even if you don’t look like a schoolboy for a long time.

Price

A very good thing is not cheap. If you are offered aged french cognac for 800 rubles, something is wrong here. If you want to buy an expensive one, first look at how much it costs, compare prices on the Internet, do not run after a good price.

It’s not interesting to counterfeit very cheap alcohol from unpromoted brands; it’s more likely that it will be there in the first place Bad quality. So take it good drinks, checking the authenticity.

Bottle

Branded alcohol is bottled in special bottles with unusual shape, edges on the neck, relief inscriptions. If you want to buy specific alcohol famous brand, try to find the manufacturer’s website and evaluate how the bottle differs from any other.

Pay attention to:

Cover material. Made of plastic, metal or cork, whether the lid is wrapped or not, smooth or embossed, flat or convex. Lid good alcohol does not scroll, does not leak. On the caps of vodka bottles there is a number by which the bottle can be verified for authenticity on the manufacturer’s website.
Neck shape. Long or short, with or without edges. A bottle with a dispenser is a sign that it was made in a factory and not underground.
Bottle shape. Pay attention to the curves, shoulders of the bottle, and bottom topography.
Relief inscriptions and images. On expensive alcohol there are often inscriptions with the name of the drink, symbols of the trading house, and other designations. On fakes, these inscriptions are either not repeated at all, or not all are reproduced, or the place of application is confused.

Excise stamp

The excise stamp is printed on special paper with colored fibers; all numbers and codes on it are clear, clearly visible and readable. The stamp must be applied absolutely evenly.

Organizations that have a license to sell alcohol must check excise stamps. For you and me there is the service of the Unified Social Portal of the Alcohol Market.

Enter the numbers from the excise stamp and check whether the stamp matches the product. The service operates in test mode, that is, apparently, its data does not always correspond to reality. However, we tested five bottles produced and purchased in different places, and they all passed the test.

Label

Label quality alcohol done on good paper, often with embossing or complex elements.

If you are looking for a specific brand, compare the order in which the information on the label should appear. On branded products, all labels repeat the pattern, and product names are accompanied by a registered trademark icon.

It is mandatory to indicate the address of the manufacturer (legal and place of production), composition, and there must be links to regulatory documents.

Bottle contents

It can help if you buy alcohol in a clear glass bottle and know what the drink you want looks like.

Cognac, if you turn the bottle upside down, leaves oily streaks on the glass. They are called cognac legs.
It behaves in the same way good whiskey. We must remember that whiskey is a clear drink, there should be no sediment or flakes.
Vodka - only clear, without sediment.

But on appearance The drink can only be distinguished as a completely artisanal fake.

Here we are only talking about fakes, but there is also simply low-quality alcohol, for example, wine made from a mixture of alcohol with dyes and flavorings. The only thing that will help here is to read the label with the composition and indicate the GOST standards according to which the alcohol is made. And your feelings. If you open a bottle and something doesn't seem right, don't finish it or check. It's better to lose money than health.

The most effective way to protect yourself from bad alcohol

They can counterfeit everything, even excise stamps. Therefore the most effective method protection against bad alcohol - the choice of place of purchase and alcohol, which you can check on the manufacturer's website.

How to recognize methyl alcohol

No way. Although there are recipes for determining methanol.

Dipping heated copper wire into alcohol, for example. When methanol reacts with copper, it will release formaldehyde and you will notice a pungent odor. Ethanol doesn't behave that way. But ethanol will also smell, although not as disgusting. There is another option with setting the alcohol on fire and revealing the shade of the flame (methanol burns greenish).

These methods work if you are comparing two clean looking alcohol And methanol can be added to alcohol in different proportions, diluted and mixed with dyes, flavors and ethanol.

Symptoms of methyl alcohol poisoning

At first, methanol poisoning is no different from alcohol poisoning: dizziness, nausea, headache. Then warning signs appear:

Pain throughout the body.
Loss of vision.
Dyspnea.
Cardiopalmus.

What to do to avoid methanol poisoning

Drink only alcohol from trusted places and only high-quality alcohol.
Never get so drunk that you miss the first signs of poisoning, that is, until you lose your footing and feel sick.
If you have symptoms of poisoning, immediately call an ambulance and get to the doctors.
Before the doctors arrive, provide first aid.

Although regular ethanol helps slow down poisoning technical alcohol, do not self-medicate with alcohol.

It happens that buyers risk purchasing defective goods. This applies to any product, including alcohol. To prevent alcoholic beverages from causing poisoning, there is a tax stamp on alcohol. This is a kind of document in the form of a sticker confirming the quality of the product. It contains information about the product, its origin and movement throughout the country.

According to the legislation of the Russian Federation, all alcoholic products are subject to excise tax labeling. If it is domestically produced, then it has a sign of federal significance.

Checking the quality of alcoholic products using excise stamps

The excise stamp on alcohol indicates payment of the tax fixed in the country for the sale of alcoholic beverages. The document is subject to strict reporting at the state level, therefore it is regularly checked by regulatory authorities. If the sale of alcohol with or without a counterfeit excise tax is detected, the seller will be held administratively liable.

Today, the excise stamp for alcohol has a certain shape and appearance, which makes it possible to distinguish it from a fake. There are several ways to do this.

Visual assessment

The following signs are taken into account:

Appearance: clear paint, no streaks. This brand does not leave marks on the hand after touching.
Excise geometry: smooth rectangular edges, label dimensions 90*26 and 62*21 mm.
Convexity of the golden line crossing the sticker. The strip should not be easily applied to the paper, but should look like woven threads.
On back side the presence of a luminescent inscription “Alcohol products”.
The words “Russian Federation” and the abbreviation FSM(Federal special stamp) are printed in small font, which can be distinguished with one hundred percent vision.
Hologram image in the form of a complex geometric pattern that shimmers at different angles.
Blue squares, glowing under a fluorescent lamp.
12 digit number clarity. It is easy to identify a fake using it using the appropriate information resource.

Mobile app

Checking alcohol according to the excise stamp is carried out not only visually, but also thanks to a special mobile application. To do this, a barcode confirming the quality of the excise tax is scanned with a telephone camera. After which the necessary information about the manufacturer is displayed on the screen.

Internet

Via the Internet, through the official websites of companies producing alcoholic beverages. To verify the authenticity of the excise tax, simply dial the label number using a special scanner in the store.

Excise tax check by color

Modern technologies make it possible to design a brand in different shades. It is easy to determine the alcohol content of a bottle by color:

A red-gray tone indicates that the drink contains a small amount of alcohol - from 9 to 25%.
An orange-pink tint is a sign that the alcohol product contains a lot of alcohol - from 25%.
Green-lilac color indicates wines. Their strength is 15–22%.
If the drink is of the sparkling type, it has a yellow-green excise tax.

Determining the authenticity of the excise tax in the store

It is imperative to pay attention to the labeling of alcoholic products in the store. Excise stamp on alcohol, like banknote, is printed on special paper and has its own protection system. It should fit tightly to the bottle and not be damaged. Goods with damaged excise taxes are not put on shelves for sale.

Using a special scanner, which is found in every major mall, is the easiest way to determine the quality of a product. To do this, the buyer has the right to contact the supermarket administration to use the device to check the number:

If the equipment does not reveal any violations, and the buyer still has doubts about the quality of the product, he can contact the Forensic Expertise Center to prove his suspicions.
If the scanner shows that the excise tax does not meet the requirements, it is better to refuse the purchase.

You can also ask the seller to show a copy of the quality certificate, which contains information about the manufacturer, supplier and importer. The information specified in the document and on the excise tax must match.

Actions upon detection of counterfeit excise tax

Checking alcohol using the excise stamp allows you to record cases of violation of consumer rights. If a product is found to be counterfeit, you must adhere to the following rules:

Keep the receipt for low-quality goods.
Write a corresponding statement to the district police department and Rospotrebnadzor in order to punish violators.
Send a letter to the city department of commerce.

All written documents must include information about the product:

name, manufacturer;
date and place of purchase;
copies of checks;
photo of a drink with excise duty.

The competent authorities consider the complaint within a month and issue a written opinion.

They are documents of strict government accountability. However, this fact does not guarantee the legality of alcohol, which is why it often becomes necessary to check the authenticity of the excise tax.

Methods for checking excise tax authenticity

There are several ways to check tax stamps to get information about whether they are real:

Organizations that carry out retail sales of alcoholic beverages must undergo mandatory registration. Having a license is permission to use the Rosalkogolregulirovaniye information system, which contains a database with excise tax numbers. To gain access to the system, you must prepare and send an appeal to this address federal structure. If the outcome is positive, the organization can check on the official website of Rosalkogolregulirovanie in the section dedicated to electronic services.
Some reputable manufacturers alcoholic drinks On their official websites they create special sections where you can check the authenticity of the product. An example is “Five Lakes” vodka, where you must enter the excise label number to complete verification actions.
Recently, special programs have been developed for mobile devices.
- “Anti-counterfeiting Alco” is the official application of the Federal Service for Alcohol Regulation, which allows you to check alcoholic beverages using the excise tax number. The Alcohol Scanner works with a QR code, which is also found on the excise stamp. Using the mobile device's camera, the image is loaded into the program and recognized by it.
- The EGAIS check check program also works in a similar way to a scanner and is connected to the database of the federal government.
Stores usually install special scanners. You can use it yourself or ask the seller for help.

Checking excise tax stamps of alcohol through EGAIS is shown in this video:

Signs of counterfeit during visual inspection

To recognize a counterfeit excise tax on alcohol-containing drinks, it is enough to carry out a visual inspection. There are some signs that should alert the buyer:

the golden line running across the sticker is convex to the touch, it should not be erased, if desired, it can be removed by pulling one of the ends;
if you rub the text printed on the side, it will remain unchanged, but on a counterfeit it can be easily erased or smeared with your finger;
The holographic part of the sticker shimmers when turned and tilted different colors, and if it just shines, this is a characteristic feature of a counterfeit;
This excise tax has exceptionally smooth edges, and the paint does not leave marks on your hands.

Type of present excise tax

Checking alcohol using a smartphone - the topic of the video below:

Checking vodka for authenticity

Vodka is the best-selling alcoholic drink, but it is also the most frequently counterfeited. In order not to become a victim of counterfeit goods, as well as to protect yourself from poisoning, you need to check the products by following simple instructions:

The size of the excise stamp on vodka has the following dimensional characteristics: 9 x 2.6 cm or 6.2 x 2.1 cm.
This sticker contains information about the manufacturer, production date, brand number, barcode and holographic insert.
Resort to examination of the scanner, which should be in any large store.

If alcohol has already been purchased, then you can conduct some experiments at home before drinking.