Eight months with one supplier, then a change in how they communicate that I noticed before I noticed anything about the product.
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.
What I am after is how people are distinguishing a supplier having a bad batch from a supplier on the way out.
I have searched first, so if this is covered somewhere point me at it and I will read it.
Answering the narrow version, because the broad one does not have a single answer. 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.
julia.endo said:Prices dramatically below market are the strongest single signal, and the reason is arithmetic rather than suspicion.
Agreed, with a caveat about community reputation: it is a lagging indicator. Reports arrive weeks after orders, so a supplier can look excellent for a month after quality has already changed.
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Shop Reference StandardsDr.AddMedPHL said:Eight months with one supplier, then a change in how they communicate that I noticed before I noticed anything about the product.
Can confirm the pattern Dr.AddMedPHL describes. 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.
From the other side of the consultation, briefly.
Vendor reputation tracking for vendor vetting: I maintain a personal spreadsheet with every order I've placed — date, vendor, batch number, Janoshik result, personal efficacy assessment (1-5 scale), and any issues.
After 20 orders across 5 vendors: average purity 97.0%, zero sterility concerns, 0 shipping issues (all resolved). This data gives me confidence in my current source and documentation if issues arise.
I encourage everyone to track their orders systematically. Community data aggregation makes us all safer.