The steroid underground subforum is a goldmine of information about sources/UGLs and products. There's nothing counterproductive about that.
What I do find counterproductive is a lot of the conclusions made based on this information.
There is far too much dichotomous thinking when it comes to the AAS black market. People are compelled to classify sources/UGLs as either "GTG" or "scammer". These terms are so overused that they are practically meaningless.
There is no such thing as a perfect source. So, I'd recommend that everyone eliminate that GTG term from your vocabulary when discussing sources.
There seems to be this tendency among individuals and even other forums to "approve" a source based on labmax or serum blood testing. While the tests provide useful info about specific products, it is silly to extrapolate that data (no matter how positive it may be) to every other aspect related to the source and/or product line. And when you use this limited data to make a "GTG" or "approved" proclamation, this is exactly what you are doing.
The same flawed thinking applies when applying the "scammer" label.
And what is worse, once those labels are applied, the critical thinking stops. This is especially true with GTG/approved sources. People stop asking questions.
It's troubling that so many people are will to lend their credibility to promote a source as GTG/approved without so much as a single analytical HPLC/MS test performed on even a single product.
Maybe if they performed multiple HPLC/MS tests on each and everyone of a UGL's products over the course of 12 months, then it would mean something. Otherwise, these labels do more harm than good.
The proper way to interpret positive serum/labmax/analytical test results is to limit it to the specific product at that specific time. Don't extrapolate the results to all products and don't give the UGL/source a pass for the next several months either.
People are creatures of habit and more importantly of comfort. They feel comforted knowing/seeing someone test a product and get what they deem to be a good result from it. This creates a comfort level that carries over to the UGL's other products.
On the other side, if one person has a bad experience, that UGL is crucified and their thread eventually gets left for dead unless people are owed something and are waiting to be made whole. There is also comfort found in that too. The sigh of relief people who hadn't ordered feel when they see they were justified in not ordering from a source that goes the wrong way.
Is it reasonable to assume that no matter what that a UGL will meet up to a standard of quality that we, as the customer, dictate? IMO no, but only because that is a pipedream that will never become reality. We're not talking about geniuses here who decided to break bad. These are pretty generic, everyday, run of the mill drug dealers, who substance of choice to sell just happened to be AAS. They get into trouble because there are so many ways to test the legitimacy of AAS, that every source will eventually make that one fatal mistake, and have their business ruined.
For us, again as the customer, we don't have any thing other Labmax and Blood Tests at our disposal readily. It's really as simple as that. Because of comfort, those have become the de facto ways of determining the legitimacy of a source. This isn't really going to change, because it can't. A customer, especially of AAS, want's instant gratification. We're like kids who just went to buy a new toy. If your parents told you that you have to wait 2 months to use the new toy to make sure it's safe or you can play with it now what would you do? Your parents tell you, if you wait 2 months and it comes out that it is dangerous, we'll give you your money back and you'll be able to buy a new toy, but you're going to have to wait for the results. If you play with the toy right now, it may or may not work, but you probably won't be getting a new toy if it doesn't work. You'd throw a tantrum and just play with the toy, assuming the risk involved.
We're very much like children in this regard. We see a source, we want to use the gear immediately, we want to get test results immediately, and we want those results to be generated by us as well. Subconsciously it gives us more belief that our results are purely objective because the individual user is able to administer the test. I do a labmax, I get my results within 5 minutes total time. I get bloodwork, I get results within a week, of the blood in MY body and how much hormone is in MY body. This brings me more comfort than waiting a month or more to get HPLC results that might be out of date by the time they get posted. In a month, any decent sized operation will have sold through all the raw powder they used for that batch and will be on to a new batch. We're always playing catch up that way. Instead, we have the opportunity to call out the bullshit as it's happening.
I really have thought about this a lot and I don't know what a reasonable thing to do is. Asking sources to do more will always lead to either them running away with people's money, or them posting HPLC results that we all poke holes through and make them no longer legitimate.
