emily_PDX said:

Prices dramatically below market are the strongest single signal, and the reason is arithmetic rather than suspicion.

That is correct as far as it goes, and here is where it stops going. 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.

emily_PDX 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.

This one has a reasonably settled answer, so here it is. The useful checklist is about verifiability rather than presentation. Independent test results commissioned by buyers rather than by the seller, consistency across multiple batches over time rather than one flattering report, a physical address and a company registration that resolve, batch and lot numbers on the actual labelling, and a shipping practice that matches what the material needs. Everything a good-looking website provides is cheap to fake; none of the items above are.

Dr.MetabolicMD said:

The pattern that distinguishes a bad batch from an exit is behaviour rather than product.

This matches mine closely enough to be worth saying so out loud. I had assumed I was the exception until I read this.