If the computer was programmed right, it would have been easy to catch that mistake. Obviously they aren't looking at the same details that we do in order to determine authenticity. I believe I read that they look at things like stitch length and material grain. If they aren't checking things like numbers and fonts, I imagine lots of fakes slip by them.
That's why I can't understand why they would even bother with older
Coach styles. Not just because they're usually too inexpensive to even warrant that kind of paid authentication, but where are they getting their baseline examples from? How do they know THOSE are genuine? Older Coaches were hand-sewn and there were always variations in things like stitch length and even leather grain, and that's just the things that their computers and lasers can supposedly measure. What happens when they get into the REAL variations, like what's shown in the example BeenBurned posted?
I can only speak confidently about classic and vintageCoach products, but as an authenticator here at tPF, just my text files on Coach covering things like valid and invalid date and plant codes are long and complicated, and the idea that any computer algorithm could use them effectively, if they even had access to them, is totally ridiculous. And that's not even including my photos files which are massive. The other Coach authenticators have the same kind of library and we all refer to those files almost every day since Coach authentication can hang on something as miniscule and almost unmeasureable as the exact length of an underscore or hyphen. And then there are the known and suspected fake serial numbers or serial prefixes, which Entrupy proved in the above example that they're totally clueless about.
Any computer program that its creators claim can tell the difference between a genuine and a fake Coach, ESPECIALLY an older one, is a waste of electrons and a danger to anyone depending on it for making buying decisions. There's absolutely NO way I would ever accept or depend on any so-called authentication for a pre-2000 Coach product. I'm amazed that Goodwill is wasting their money by tossing it at a company that is incapable of giving them the "computer-based" services that Goodwill is paying for. If Entrupy is authenticating older or vintage Coaches they're not using any kind of computer system to do it unless they're just searching Google for similar style numbers, which is what any fly-by-night "authentication service" does. And they'll be making just as many mistakes.
