TirzTom said:The useful checklist is about verifiability rather than presentation.
Pushing back on TirzTom here. Import rules are jurisdiction-specific and this board keeps giving US-shaped answers to non-US questions. What is a personal-import allowance in one country is a controlled-import offence in another.
Adding the numbers, since they settle part of this. 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.
That is the short version; the long version is somebody else's post.
TrialNerd_Beth said:Import rules are jurisdiction-specific and this board keeps giving US-shaped answers to non-US questions.
Adding the part of the answer the thread has not reached. 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.
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Browse GL BiochemOne thing that is still open after wanda_boise’s answer:
How people are distinguishing a supplier having a bad batch from a supplier on the way out?
Reporting back.
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.