Home › Guides › Vendor Communication Red Flags: The Tell Is How They Answer By TorontoHealth Editorial · Updated July 8, 2026
Vendor Communication Red Flags: The Tell Is How They Answer
Short answer: How a vendor answers a simple testing question tells you more than its entire homepage. Evasiveness is the tell.
Green flags
A direct answer, a link to a COA that verifies on the lab's portal, the vendor named as the client, and a batch number that matches.
Red flags
Deflection, screenshots instead of verifiable links, in-house-only numbers, or pressure to buy before you can check anything.
The one question to ask
"Can you link the independent COA for this batch, verifiable on the lab's portal?" A confident vendor answers in one message. The rest reveal themselves.