Industry Dirty Secrets.

165 ways a vial, a certificate, a price or a promise isn't what it looks like — each one ending with how to tell.

One entry and four of the ten checks are open to everyone.Members read all 165.
Where to start

What's going on?

Pick the situation for three plain things to do first — or the compound you use, to see what names it.

Your situation
What you use

None of these yours? Choose Any vial — most of the file doesn't care which peptide is inside — or start with the ten checks ↓.

What do the stamps mean?
DOCUMENTED
Hard source: a regulator, a lab, a court, or primary-sourced journalism.
CORROBORATED
Multiple unlinked sources with no shared commercial interest.
MYTH
Widely repeated, traced to one origin or to nothing — a belief the file retires.
If you read one thing

Ten checks, in order.

Before your money moves, ten checks in the order they come up — choosing a seller, paying, reading the certificate, opening the vial. Tap a check for the how.

  1. BEFORE YOU CHOOSE A SELLER
    • CHECK 01Real drug name, confirmed off-siteHOW

      Insist on the INN (the official drug name, the one a doctor would use) or a recognised research code, then confirm it in an independent registry — not on the seller's own site.

    02 · 03 — 2 more checks, sealed, members only
  2. BEFORE YOU PAY
    • CHECK 04The discount, in dollars you'd loseHOW

      Write the discount in dollars, then compare it against the whole order value you would lose with no right to dispute.

    05 — one more check, sealed, members only
  3. WHEN THE CERTIFICATE ARRIVES
    • CHECK 06A CoA, not a CoCHOW

      Read the document's actual title. A Certificate of Conformance is not a Certificate of Analysis, and only one of them contains a measurement.

    07 · 08 — 2 more checks, sealed, members only
  4. WHEN THE VIAL ARRIVES
    • CHECK 09U-100 — and your mix, written downHOW

      Check the syringe barrel says U-100 (the standard insulin-syringe scale), and write the water volume you added and the resulting mg per mL on the vial the moment you mix it.

    10 — one more check, sealed, members only

Four of the ten are open.

Unseal all ten · from $7.42 USD/mo billed annually
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Three things every buyer should know.

Three questions, twenty seconds. They are the basics a seller counts on a buyer not knowing.

1 OF 3

A vial is labelled “99% pure”. What does that number tell you about how much peptide is in it?

165 entries

CHAPTER 01 · 9 ENTRIES

Labelling & potency

What the number on the vial refers to — and what it quietly leaves out.

S-001Grade: DOCUMENTEDUnsealed for everyone

"99% pure" is a typography choice

The purity percentage on a peptide label is typically asserted, not measured — one test-purchase study found peptide content of 7.7-14.4% against a printed 99%.

WHAT YOU SEE

A chromatogram showing one clean peak, and "99% pure" on the label.

WHAT IT MEANS

The peptide is a small fraction of what's actually in the vial.

HOW TO TELL
  • Ask for purity AND peptide content as two separate figures, not one number standing in for both.
  • Request the chromatogram itself, with method, column, date and lab name, not just the percentage.
  • Match the lot number on any certificate to the lot printed on your vial before trusting either.
WHY WE SAY THIS

Purity is the spec buyers rank sellers by, and the one they can't check without a lab. A peer-reviewed study bought semaglutide from three sellers and ran LC-MS: each chromatogram showed one clean signal, yet peptide mass was only 7.7%, 8.97% and 14.37% of vial powder — all three labelled 99%. A vial can be chromatographically clean and still be mostly something else by weight; purity and content differ, and stating only one picks the flattering one.

PROVENANCEPeer-reviewed LC-MS on product bought through a real buyer's ordering path (JMIR 2024). Three vials, one compound, one point in time — not a market rate.

  1. S-006Grade: DOCUMENTED

    Blank vials and code-only labels

    What you see

    "Discreet" or "stealth" packaging; a blank or code-only vial.

    What it means
    — sealed, members only. Unseal with membership.
  2. S-011Reading the cakeA dense, even, white lyophilised plug in the vial. — sealed, members only
  3. 6 more entries in this chapter, sealed.UNSEAL
CHAPTER 02 · 13 ENTRIES

Identity & substitution

When what is in the vial is not the compound on the label at all.

CHAPTER 03 · 13 ENTRIES

The paperwork

Certificates, chromatograms, and documents easier to fake than the product.

CHAPTER 04 · 12 ENTRIES

The arithmetic

Concentration, units, and the conversions where money quietly goes missing.

CHAPTER 05 · 9 ENTRIES

Where it actually comes from

Rebranding, drop-shipping, and the distance between a brand and a factory.

CHAPTER 08 · 15 ENTRIES

Price as a signal

Per-vial, per-milligram, and the arithmetic of a bargain.

CHAPTER 09 · 15 ENTRIES

Payment & recourse

What happens when it goes wrong, and why it so often cannot.

ALSO IN THE FILE · SEALED
  1. 06Cold chain & decayWhat happens between the factory and your fridge, and who absorbs it.16
  2. 07What the marketing is doingThe tricks aimed at the buyer rather than at the product.11
  3. 10Testing theatreThe appearance of verification, without the verification.11
  4. 11Working the rulesResearch-use-only, jurisdictions, and the legal shape of the trade.13
  5. 12Counterfeit pharmaceuticalsWhere this trade overlaps with straightforward drug counterfeiting.12
146 ENTRIES YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE TITLE OF

Members read all 165 — every punchline, every how-to-tell — from $7.42 USD/mo billed annually.

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— END OF FILE —

No seller, vendor or brand is named anywhere in this file — every entry describes a practice, never a company. Educational, not medical or legal advice. Members read all of it.