TirzTom said:Prices dramatically below market are the strongest single signal, and the reason is arithmetic rather than suspicion.
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.
SteveThurs said:Eight months with one supplier, then a change in how they communicate that I noticed before I noticed anything about the product.
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 23 orders across 5 vendors: average purity 98.3%, 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.
Dr.SleepRoch said:I disagree that testing history is decisive.
Coming at Dr.SleepRoch’s question from a different direction. The version of this that has an answer is narrower than the version being asked. Narrow it and it becomes tractable; leave it broad and the thread will produce nine confident and incompatible replies.
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Shop Reference StandardsOne thing that is still open after amsterdam_pete’s answer:
What a vetting checklist should actually contain, as opposed to a list of things that are easy to fake?
OP back with an update, since a thread like this is useless without one.
Went back through my own correspondence with an earlier supplier and the warning signs were all there in the replies, weeks before the quality changed. I was reading the product and not the behaviour.