COA red flag compilation — what worked for you?

Dr.ObesityMed said:

Shipping damage protocol for vendor vetting orders: if your package arrives with visible damage, temperature excursion, or broken vials: Photograph…

This matches mine closely enough to be worth saying so. One addition: an unstated method makes a report close to uninterpretable. "99% pure" without the technique, the standard and the conditions is a claim, not a measurement.

From the other side of the consultation, briefly. If two explanations both fit, the useful question is which one predicts something the other does not. That is answerable; arguing about which sounds more plausible is not.

Dr.SleepRoch said:

If two explanations both fit, the useful question is which one predicts something the other does not.

Second this. Nothing to add that would improve it.

Dr.SleepRoch said:

If two explanations both fit, the useful question is which one predicts something the other does not.

Coming at Dr.SleepRoch’s question from a different direction. The provenance questions are more useful than the numbers. Does the report name the batch on your vial. Is the date consistent with when that batch existed. Is it addressed to the vendor or to the person who paid for the test. Was the sample taken from general stock or supplied by the vendor. A perfect certificate for a different batch is worth nothing, and vendor-supplied samples are the most common way a genuine report ends up misleading.

Moderator note: good thread. Keeping it here rather than moving it, because the question is general enough to be useful.