Thoughts on a possible COA problem

Black Mamba

Black Mamba

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First off, I want to mention that I'm a newcomer when it comes to peptides, though I've picked up quite a bit and believe I grasp what I'm working with fairly well. I have a view about what I'm going to describe, but I'm open to being told I'm mistaken.

Not long ago, a replacement kit arrived for a peptide I'd bought before. I'd been hoping it would be from the same batch, since that one worked really well. When the new order showed up, the crimp and the cap were both a different color. From what I understand, that points to a different batch. Is that right?

I reached out to the company and requested the current COA (they claim every batch gets tested). The lot number matches the earlier order, and scanning the qr code takes you to the COA that shows the original crimp and cap color.

I'll include what I sent them along with their reply. Is their answer accurate, or are they cutting costs by skipping testing on every batch?
 
miss-sanne said:

Unless you test it yourself, you can never be sure.
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I get that, if a company is determined enough, there are plenty of ways around problems like this.

What I was really asking is whether the practice they described is something that normally happens.
 
Within just the limited stretch I've spent here, I've noticed cap color and vial crimp color differ a lot even when it's the same batch.
 
A COA from them carries no value. The color is irrelevant—why does it matter to you? Isn't the vial's contents what you should be concerned about? What you consider a batch differs from their definition.
 
anhydrous said:

A COA from them carries no value. The color is irrelevant—why does it matter to you? Isn't the vial's contents what you should be concerned about? What you consider a batch differs from their definition.
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My understanding was that when a company places a large order from China, everything arrives with matching crimp and cap colors, and that shipment is what gets submitted for testing as the batch.

After that, once they bring in more inventory, the fresh crimps and caps go through testing once again.

So when shipments come over from China, can a single order actually contain crimps and caps that don't match each other?
 
Black Mamba said:

anhydrous said:

A COA from them carries no value. The color is irrelevant—why does it matter to you? Isn't the vial's contents what you should be concerned about? What you consider a batch differs from their definition.
Click to expand...
My understanding was that when a company places a large order from China, everything arrives with matching crimp and cap colors, and that shipment is what gets submitted for testing as the batch.

After that, once they bring in more inventory, the fresh crimps and caps go through testing once again.

So when shipments come over from China, can a single order actually contain crimps and caps that don't match each other?
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That matches how I see it too. If it's truly one batch, then the caps and crimps ought to line up as well. Of course, that still doesn't prove the orange-capped T30 you're holding now is identical to the orange-capped T30 from a purchase 2 months back... (this is about the endotoxin mess with Jeep).

Nor does it promise that the vendor's COA is legit. Still, it leaves me feeling a bit more at ease🙂

If the caps and crimps didn't line up with the COA, though, I'd have zero confidence in whatever I'd been sold.

So what steps would I take?

#1 Stop buying from that vendor

# Get the product tested

# Hunt for other test results that match the kit's Pep, quantity, caps and crimps, then compare them
 
You've got to adopt a dealer's mindset here. Suppose a guy has enough powder on hand to crank out 10000 kits of T30, yet his supply of red caps only stretches to 7000 kits. Does anyone honestly believe he'd halt everything and scream about running out of red caps, then ship that same material off to Jano with different caps? Time and money both get burned that way.

And really, what does "batch" even mean? If a person buys 50kg of raw material and produces a billion vials across different doses, do they all count as one batch just because the powder source was shared? Is a batch everything cooked up in a single day or week? Or is it defined by whatever got grouped together when it hit a particular production step? Almost nobody outside would ever know those details -- definitely not you, not me, and not the clown ringing up your order at the drive through.
 
anhydrous said:

You've got to adopt a dealer's mindset here. Suppose a guy has enough powder on hand to crank out 10000 kits of T30, yet his supply of red caps only stretches to 7000 kits. Does anyone honestly believe he'd halt everything and scream about running out of red caps, then ship that same material off to Jano with different caps? Time and money both get burned that way.

And really, what does "batch" even mean? If a person buys 50kg of raw material and produces a billion vials across different doses, do they all count as one batch just because the powder source was shared? Is a batch everything cooked up in a single day or week? Or is it defined by whatever got grouped together when it hit a particular production step? Almost nobody outside would ever know those details -- definitely not you, not me, and not the clown ringing up your order at the drive through.
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Alright, I get what you're saying.

However, imagine this—still with the drug dealer mindset—that you're a seller. You're looking to replenish your T30 stock. Doesn't it make the most sense to source every cap in a single color from one "batch" and then submit that for testing? That way @Black Mamba won't begin to doubt you?
 
byefatlicia said:

anhydrous said:

You've got to adopt a dealer's mindset here. Suppose a guy has enough powder on hand to crank out 10000 kits of T30, yet his supply of red caps only stretches to 7000 kits. Does anyone honestly believe he'd halt everything and scream about running out of red caps, then ship that same material off to Jano with different caps? Time and money both get burned that way.

And really, what does "batch" even mean? If a person buys 50kg of raw material and produces a billion vials across different doses, do they all count as one batch just because the powder source was shared? Is a batch everything cooked up in a single day or week? Or is it defined by whatever got grouped together when it hit a particular production step? Almost nobody outside would ever know those details -- definitely not you, not me, and not the clown ringing up your order at the drive through.
Click to expand...
Alright, I get what you're saying.

However, imagine this—still with the drug dealer mindset—that you're a seller. You're looking to replenish your T30 stock. Doesn't it make the most sense to source every cap in a single color from one "batch" and then submit that for testing? That way @Black Mamba won't begin to doubt you?
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When you're the one in the middle, your sales are limited to whatever stock you're able to secure. Would you rather hold firm to your beliefs and turn down product that's completely fine just because the shade isn't what you expected? Or is your actual goal to turn a profit? My goal is profit, so I'll instruct the guy at the drive-through window to say whatever is necessary to get these customers—who are fixated on their preferred color of the rainbow and clearly not thinking straight—to hand over their cash.
 
I might not have the full picture of how this all operates. The order I placed came through an online company rather than a vendor.

My assumption was that when a company sources its supply from China, it purchases 3000 vials of one thing, 5000 vials of another, plus whatever else is on the order. I hadn't considered that they might instead receive raw materials and handle the bottling in-house (which, economically, is the most logical approach). If that's what happens, running out of a particular cap color makes perfect sense.

So here's a question that can't really be answered: if a company is being honest, how long could it keep using the same batch code?
 
Black Mamba said:

I might not have the full picture of how this all operates. The order I placed came through an online company rather than a vendor.

My assumption was that when a company sources its supply from China, it purchases 3000 vials of one thing, 5000 vials of another, plus whatever else is on the order. I hadn't considered that they might instead receive raw materials and handle the bottling in-house (which, economically, is the most logical approach). If that's what happens, running out of a particular cap color makes perfect sense.

So here's a question that can't really be answered: if a company is being honest, how long could it keep using the same batch code?
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Assuming they're telling the truth? It'll last as long as their current supply does. That hinges on the quantity they started with and how quickly it moves.

After that, once they bring in new inventory, a fresh COA ought to come with it.
 
miss-sanne said:

Unless you test it yourself, you can never be sure.
Click to expand...
Exactly, right? And OP, suppose you give the seller's story some credit — that nagging doubt will still hit you at every injection, asking yourself whether they lied. Getting it tested takes that edge off....Still, remember that nothing here is ever 100% not even with testing. Weigh it out and decide what level of risk you can live with...GL
 
Lots of suppliers let buyers pick cap colors when ordering in bulk. You're able to select them per run.

That's meaningless.

Any vial can get a batch number slapped on it; it's worthless when the vendor isn't trustworthy.

Only 3rd party testing counts

Does that make you or me feel any better?

Yeah....

Lean on herd mentality — reputation is the strongest protection when purchasing, since a seller's good name is something they'll fight to protect.. right up until they stop caring

Good Luck
 
I make it a point to obtain COAs every time, but verifying their authenticity is beyond my ability. What would solve this is if the FDA stepped aside and allowed peptide production and testing to occur legally and transparently.

That said, the FDA's founding purpose of safeguarding the public hasn't been their focus for quite some time. These days, their real goal is shielding big pharma from rivals. They operate much like organized crime—except rather than dispatching Bruno and Antonio to shatter your kneecaps, they use legal authority to force your business to close.
 
A public service reminder, focused on what @Skidude said:

Any CoA that comes from a vendor or a reseller should be treated as completely worthless, 100% of the time. This holds even when the CoA is described as "third party". Asking for them is pointless, and accepting them is a mistake. The whole thing is theater.

To make this clearer for OP: when we say vendor, we mean the mostly underground sellers, almost always operating out of China, whose salespeople reach out through Telegram or Discord. At the bottom of a chain of middlemen whose size nobody knows, these sellers sit, and the canning and lyophilization is handled by a middleman further up. What comes out of that is a batch, consisting of many vials, though probably not hundreds of thousands. Losses during the process vary, and that is the reason the batch matters more than the raw API. As for the less underground online sellers, my estimate is that they are even more ignorant and even less principled than the vendor salespeople.
 
Black Mamba said:

I might not have the full picture of how this all operates. The order I placed came through an online company rather than a vendor.

My assumption was that when a company sources its supply from China, it purchases 3000 vials of one thing, 5000 vials of another, plus whatever else is on the order. I hadn't considered that they might instead receive raw materials and handle the bottling in-house (which, economically, is the most logical approach). If that's what happens, running out of a particular cap color makes perfect sense.

So here's a question that can't really be answered: if a company is being honest, how long could it keep using the same batch code?
Click to expand...

How does an online company differ from a vendor? Raw material comes from one party, another party produces the finished product, and middlemen may sit between them. Those middlemen then sell the finished product either to you or to further middlemen who sell it to you. Across the whole supply chain, you have no way of knowing who obtained what from whom, or how each person defines a batch.
 
A vendor's "COA" (really, its test reports) has no value at all, with a single exception: when the vendor treats those results as the thing backing a guarantee, so that if a buyer pays for their own testing and the numbers come back outside whatever tolerance the guarantee sets, the vendor is on the hook.

That is the entire extent of it.

If someone believes vendor test reports alone can prove they're getting what was advertised, with no independent testing done outside the vendor, they'd be better off buying the big pharma name brands. The same applies to the strange fixation on cap color, since absent testing you run yourself or that a group runs, entirely separate from the vendor, it's nothing but illusion and misdirection.
 
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