Raining down on people for being gullible on this one is a bit much i think. Hell, i haven't got it mapped in my head every location scammers have used to set off my internal flag. Add to that i probably wasn't even around when it happened last time to log it. He had several products pass labmax, one pass a mass spec(that he knowingly sent in good product to be tested), and the first month people got their gear from what i can tell. After that it went to shit.
I don't know that we can do anything to stop this kind of behavior except possibly catch it quicker. Most of us don't have established sources that have been running for a year. In fact, if they exist, which i'm sure a few do, i would think they are very rare and likely very select if they are still up and running. So, some of us have to take a chance. It goes with the territory so to speak and we just have to learn how to limit loss as much as we can. I dodged a bullet on this one as my laziness was the only thing that saved me from ordering test in a sizable dose to start home brewing. I was fence-sitting going back and forth and this time i made the right choice by making none at all. I still wouldn't jump on people that decided to go ahead and order though. I thought he was probably all right up to last week.
So when do we throw up red flags? After a week? We order on a Monday, it doesn't show by Friday we start making noise? I'm not sure what the standard should be. I know people have said to start with a small batch, then think about a second...and i think that is a sound strategy, but then what else can you do? Labmax your gear so you know you at least have something, then get bloods done...something i was also preparing for. If a source just plain flakes out, what is the test for that besides x number of people being screwed?
