Authentication system for consumer products

A method for authenticating a consumer product, the method comprising:

• coupling a near field communication (NFC) tag to a consumer product wherein said NFC tag is programmed to provide a unique identifier (UID) to a mobile computing device when said NFC tag is scanned, and wherein said NFC tag includes a printed representation of a unique product code (UPC);
• coupling a physical element to the consumer product wherein said physical element includes a visible printed representation of the UPC;
• storing in a database, communicatively coupled to a communications network, a record for each of a plurality of consumer products, wherein each record includes at least a UPC and an associated UID;
• executing an application on a computing device communicatively coupled to the communications network, wherein said application is configured for reading the UID from the NFC tag, transmitting the UID to a server via the communications network, and displaying a UPC received from the server, such that a user may determine if the UPC that was received matches the printed representation of the UPC;
• and
• wherein the server is configured for:
• i) receiving the UID, via the communications network, from the application;
• ii) accessing a record in the database that corresponds to the UID and reading a UPC from the record;
• and
• iii) transmitting, via the communications network, the UPC associated with the UID in the record.