@joshua I was already somewhat annoyed with them because they were packaging the buffer in a separate little blister pack that you had to tear open and transfer to the sample tube, a finicky and sometimes lossy process. No surplus in the packet, even if you didn't spill any and squeezed it as flat as you could, it would still often end up a hair shy of the line (though I didn't complain about those).

But I figured if they were already willing to skimp on the cheap visible component, they were probably willing to skimp on the expensive invisible antibodies, and if their QC let the easy thing through it's not promising for the more critical parts. (Not to mention any other devices the manufacturer might make!)