EAN Code

WARNING: EANCode

  • eancode.fr
  • eancodes.eu
  • eancode.be
  • eancode.nl
  • eankopen.nl
  • ean-barcode.nl
  • BuyEAN.co.uk
  • Eancodekaufen.de
  • BuyEAN.nl

The numbers can be

  • 13-digit GS1 country-specific numbers (e.g. 7446051151101 which is a GS1 Costa Rica country-specific number)
  • Numbers that fall between GS1-issued series.
  • Numbers that are assigned by GS1 to non-retail applications

EAN Code (EANCode) is based in the Netherlands, but they also sell barcodes in Belgium and France. 

They have multiple serious issues:

1. Selling Barcode Numbers that they don’t own

EAN Code appear to be selling barcode numbers that that they don’t own. Their eancode.nl site shows pictures of barcodes that start with 744 (a prefix owned by GS1 Costa Rica) and their Belgium site shows images of barcodes that start with 367 (a prefixed owned by GS1 France and Monaco). It is highly unlikely that either of these GS1 organisations have given EAN Code permission to legally on-sell their numbers.
The BuyEAN.co.uk site sells numbers beginning with 714, which are un-allocated to any country.
The eancode.be site has images of barcodes starting with 367 – these numbers belong to GS1-France and are NOT available for legal sale.

2. Extremely cheap barcodes (Lowest Price Guaranteed???)

EAN Code sell their barcode numbers extremely cheaply (e.g. their eankopen.nl site sells 5 EAN barcodes for 12.95 euro total, and on their homepage they say “We guarantee the lowest price”). We believe it’s impossible to provide a genuine legal barcode service, and authentic barcode numbers, for that price.

3. False Claims

On their websites they state that they are an “official EAN reseller” (e.g. their Belgium website homepage states that “EANcode.be is the only official EAN reseller in Belgium”). These are false and meaningless claims – there are no “official” resellers.

Their eankopen.nl site homepage says “Order your EAN numbers now! 841824 customers already preceded you“, however this seems to be a completely random number – when we refreshed the page that number went down to 841818, and then down again to 841700 after we refreshed the page again.

Their eankopen.nl homepage says, “the purchased EAN codes are valid indefinitely and fully in your possession” – however they appear to be illegally selling barcode numbers, so the barcodes are not at all in the customer’s possession.

 

Article published 28/05/2020, updated 17/6/20.

Note: Dutch and French website text was translated to English (via Google Translate) for use in this article.