Eight months with one supplier, then a change in how they communicate that I noticed before I noticed anything about the product.
Writing it up rather than posting a verdict, because a verdict is not checkable and the detail is.
Red flags, in rough order of how much they should worry you: no verifiable address, no batch numbers, prices far under market, vendor-commissioned tests only, pressure toward irreversible payment, and shipping with no temperature control.
One flattering data point from a group buy is not consistency. Consistency means separate batches, separately commissioned, over months.
What I am after is what a vetting checklist should actually contain, as opposed to a list of things that are easy to fake. Practical detail welcome, however dull — the duller the better.
COA_Karl said:Eight months with one supplier, then a change in how they communicate that I noticed before I noticed anything about the product.
That is correct as far as it goes, and here is where it stops going. Prices dramatically below market are the strongest single signal, and the reason is arithmetic rather than suspicion. Synthesis, testing, and cold-chain shipping have floors. A price well under the floor means something was skipped, and the two things that get skipped are testing and content.
COA_Karl said:Eight months with one supplier, then a change in how they communicate that I noticed before I noticed anything about the product.
I disagree that testing history is decisive. It tells you what a supplier did when they were being watched. Continuity of behaviour under stress — a late shipment, a failed test, a complaint — is more predictive than any run of good results.
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Shop Reference StandardsThis one has a reasonably settled answer, so here it is. The pattern that distinguishes a bad batch from an exit is behaviour rather than product. A bad batch comes with communication, a reshipment offer and a batch number. An exit comes with slower replies, pressure toward less reversible payment methods, sudden discounting, and the same reassurance repeated without any new information. The product tells you less than the correspondence does.
LibrarianMeg said:Prices dramatically below market are the strongest single signal, and the reason is arithmetic rather than suspicion.
Same pattern here, and in the same order.