Age Verification Policy
Pepticore.co sells laboratory research chemicals. You must be at least 21 years old to open an account, place an order, or receive a shipment from us. This page explains how we set and enforce that limit, what we ask you to certify at checkout, when we will ask you for identification, and what we do with the records we keep.
The short version
You must be 21 years of age or older to buy from Pepticore.co. At checkout you must tick a box certifying your age and confirming that you are buying for laboratory research purposes only. We reserve the right to ask you for government-issued photo identification before we release an order, to refuse or cancel any order that does not meet our eligibility criteria, and to require an adult signature on delivery. Where we collect identification, we keep only what we need, for a limited period, and we delete it on schedule.
This page describes our own policy and summarizes the legal framework we operate under. It is written for general information and is not legal advice. Buyers remain independently responsible for confirming that purchase, possession, and use of a given compound is lawful in their own state.
Minimum purchase age: 21 and over
Pepticore.co applies a single, uniform minimum age of 21 years to every product in our catalog, every product category, and every U.S. shipping destination we serve. There is no lower tier and no exception for any compound, quantity, or customer type. This applies equally to account registration, order placement, order receipt, and any request for a quote, sample, or bulk pricing.
Why 21 rather than 18
No single federal statute sets a minimum purchase age for laboratory research chemicals. Where the law is silent, the age limit is a matter of contract between us and the buyer, and we have chosen to set it deliberately high.
Three reasons drive that choice. First, the products we sell are unapproved, non-clinical materials that carry real handling risk and must never reach a person who might self-administer them. Second, state legislatures are actively restricting the sale of weight-loss and muscle-building products to minors, and a uniform 21 threshold clears every one of those statutes with margin rather than tracking each of them separately. Third, common carriers offer mature, well-tested adult-signature services at the 21 threshold, which makes our delivery controls enforceable in practice rather than just on paper.
In short, 21 is the strictest applicable standard we could adopt, and we apply it nationwide instead of varying it state by state.
Age of majority and contract capacity
Separately from our own age limit, a buyer must have the legal capacity to enter a binding contract. The age of majority is 18 in most U.S. states, but it is 19 in Alabama and Nebraska and 21 in Mississippi. Because our threshold is 21, every eligible Pepticore buyer has reached the age of majority in every state, and the contract formed at checkout is enforceable everywhere we ship.
Buying on behalf of an organization
If you are ordering for a university department, a company, or a contract laboratory, the individual who completes checkout must personally be 21 or over and must be authorized to bind that organization. The certification described below is given by that individual in both capacities. We may ask for evidence of institutional affiliation as part of our review.
Where this policy applies
Pepticore.co ships within the United States only. We do not accept orders for delivery outside the U.S., to freight forwarders, to reshipping services, or to addresses we cannot verify as a genuine U.S. delivery point. This policy applies to all fifty states, the District of Columbia, and any U.S. territory we serve, and it applies to orders placed from a mobile device, a desktop browser, by email, or by telephone.
The certification you give at checkout
Every order on Pepticore.co requires an affirmative, unticked-by-default acknowledgment before payment can be submitted. The box is not pre-selected, the order cannot proceed without it, and the certification is recorded against the order with a timestamp. This is the exact wording you are agreeing to:
What the certification means legally
By ticking the box you make a representation of fact to us. We are entitled to rely on it when we decide whether to accept your order. If the representation is false, the order is voidable at our discretion, any warranty is void, and responsibility for the consequences of the misrepresentation rests with you rather than with Pepticore or Renaissance Wave LLC.
The certification supplements, and does not replace, the terms in our Terms of Service and Research Use Only Disclaimer.
What we record
When the box is ticked, we store the fact of the certification, the wording in force at that time, the date and time, and the order number it relates to. We do this so that the certification can be produced later if a regulator, a payment provider, or a court asks how the order was authorized.
We do not ask you to type your date of birth into the checkout form, and we do not store one unless you later provide identification under the process in Section 4.
How age and eligibility are checked
We use a layered approach. Most orders clear on the first two layers alone. The later layers are applied where an order shows risk indicators, where a state requires a stronger check, or where a payment provider or carrier requires it.
Site entry notice
A clear notice on our storefront states that the site is intended for qualified researchers aged 21 and over, and that products are sold for research use only.
Checkout certification
The affirmative 21-and-over and research-purpose acknowledgment described in Section 2, recorded and timestamped against the order.
Automated order review
Billing and shipping data, address validity, payment-provider signals, and order patterns are screened before an order is released.
Manual review and ID request
Where a flag is raised, a human reviews the order and may request government-issued photo identification or evidence of research affiliation.
Delivery-point check
Where required by law, by our carrier, or by our own risk assessment, the shipment is sent with an adult-signature requirement.
What raises a flag
Our review is risk-based rather than random. The indicators we weigh include a mismatch between billing and shipping details, an address that resolves to a freight forwarder or reshipper, a shipping address in a state or locality with a specific restriction, an unusually large first order, repeated declined payments, a previously refused order from the same customer, an order placed alongside communications that suggest personal or human use, and any statement made to our support team that contradicts the checkout certification.
No single indicator automatically refuses an order. They determine whether the order proceeds to manual review.
When and how we ask you to prove your age
Pepticore expressly reserves the right to request proof of age and proof of research eligibility at any point before an order ships, and to hold that order until the request is satisfied. By completing checkout you consent to this request being made.
What we accept
- A valid, unexpired government-issued photo identification showing your date of birth — a state driver’s license, a state ID card, a U.S. passport or passport card, or a military ID.
- For institutional buyers, a purchase order on organizational letterhead, an institutional email address, or a laboratory or departmental affiliation document, in addition to the individual’s ID.
- Where a third-party age-verification or identity provider is used, a successful verification result returned by that provider.
What we ask you to redact
Send us only what we need. Before you upload a document, cover or black out everything except your full name, your date of birth, the document expiry date, and the issuing state. In particular, redact your ID number, your Social Security number, your license class and endorsements, any organ-donor marking, and any barcode or machine-readable zone.
How to send it
We will contact you from our verified support address with a secure upload link or reply instructions. We will never ask you to send identification through social media, a messaging app, or an unsolicited link, and we will never ask you for your full payment card number, your card PIN, your online banking credentials, or your Social Security number. If you receive a message claiming to be from Pepticore and asking for any of those, it is not from us — forward it to contact@pepticore.co.
Timeframe
We will tell you clearly what we need and give you a reasonable period, normally seven calendar days, to respond. If we do not hear from you within that period, or if the documentation does not establish that you are 21 or over, we will cancel the order and refund it in full under Section 5. Your order is not lost while it is under review — it is held, not forfeited.
Third-party verification services
We may use a specialist age or identity verification provider to carry out these checks on our behalf. Where we do, that provider acts as our service provider or processor, is bound by contract to use the data only for verification, and is identified in our Privacy Policy.
Cancelling or refusing an order
Placing an order on Pepticore.co is an offer to buy. It is not accepted until we confirm dispatch. We reserve the right to decline that offer, to cancel an order after it has been paid for, and to suspend or close an account, in any of the following circumstances:
- The buyer is, or we reasonably believe the buyer to be, under 21 years of age.
- The buyer declines, ignores, or fails a request for proof of age or research affiliation.
- Identification supplied appears altered, expired, or does not match the account or billing details.
- Anything the buyer tells us suggests the product is intended for human or animal administration.
- The delivery address is a freight forwarder, a reshipper, or outside the United States.
- The sale would, or might reasonably, violate a federal, state, or local restriction applicable to the buyer.
- The order shows indicators of payment fraud, account takeover, or a bad-faith chargeback history.
- The buyer has previously breached this policy, our Terms of Service, or our Research Use Only Disclaimer.
How a refused order is handled
If we refuse or cancel your order for an eligibility reason, you are not charged a restocking fee, a cancellation fee, or a handling charge. We refund the full amount you paid, including any shipping you were charged, to the original payment method. We aim to issue the refund within three business days of the decision and in any event within the period required by the Federal Trade Commission’s Mail, Internet, or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule. Your bank or card issuer controls how quickly the credit appears on your statement.
We will tell you that the order has been cancelled and give you the general reason. We may withhold specific detail about our fraud and risk indicators, because disclosing those in full would make them easy to defeat.
If you believe an order was refused in error, reply to the cancellation email or contact us using the details at the foot of this page and ask for a review. A different member of the team will look at it.
Refunds arising from refused orders are also covered by our Return & Refund Policy and Payment Policy.
Misrepresenting your age or your intended use in order to obtain research chemicals is a breach of contract, may constitute fraud, and may expose you to liability under federal and state law. We report suspected attempts to obtain these materials for administration to a person — particularly where a minor may be involved — to the relevant authorities.
What we keep, for how long, and why
We keep verification records because we need to be able to show, after the fact, that an order was properly authorized. We keep as little as possible, for as short a period as we can justify, and we delete on a schedule rather than indefinitely.
| Record | Why we hold it | How long we keep it |
|---|---|---|
| Checkout certification (fact of acknowledgment, wording, timestamp, order number) | Proof that the buyer certified age and research purpose before payment | Held with the order record for the life of the order plus the applicable statute-of-limitations period |
| Order and account data (name, billing and shipping address, email, phone, order history) | Order fulfilment, tax and accounting obligations, dispute and chargeback defense | As set out in our Privacy Policy, generally seven years for tax and accounting records |
| Outcome of an age check (pass or fail, date, reviewer reference) | Demonstrating that the policy on this page was applied consistently | Up to 24 months from the date of the decision |
| Identification document image, where one was requested and supplied | Confirming the buyer is 21 or over before the order is released | Deleted once the check is complete and in any event within 30 days, unless a specific legal hold applies |
| Date of birth extracted from an identification document | Recording only the fact that the 21 threshold was met | Reduced to a pass or fail result where possible; a retained date of birth is deleted with the account |
| Carrier adult-signature confirmation | Proof that the shipment was released to an adult at the delivery point | Held by the carrier under its own terms; we retain the tracking reference with the order |
How these records are protected
Identification documents are stored encrypted, access is limited to the small number of staff who carry out order reviews, access is logged, and the documents are excluded from marketing systems, analytics tools, and advertising platforms entirely. We do not sell verification data, we do not share it with advertisers, and we do not use it for profiling or automated decision-making beyond the eligibility check itself.
Your rights over these records
Depending on where you live you may have the right to access, correct, delete, or obtain a portable copy of the personal information we hold, and to appeal a refusal. Where a legal hold or a record-retention obligation applies, we will tell you that when we respond. Exercise these rights through our Privacy Policy or our Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information page.
Age checks on delivery
Adult signature
Some state laws require a delivery-point age check in addition to a check at the point of sale. Where such a requirement applies to a shipment, where our carrier requires it, or where our own review calls for it, we dispatch the order with an adult-signature service. The carrier will then ask for identification at the door and will not leave the package unattended.
Any customer may ask us to apply adult signature to their order even where it is not otherwise required. Contact us before the order ships.
Who may receive a shipment
A Pepticore shipment may only be accepted by a person aged 21 or over at the delivery address. You must not arrange for a shipment to be received by a minor, left with a minor, or redirected to an address where a minor will take delivery. Do not ask a carrier to leave a package in an unsecured location.
Ordering a product and having it delivered to, or signed for by, someone who does not meet our eligibility criteria is a breach of this policy even if the buyer personally qualifies.
The federal rules behind this policy
Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act — intended use
Under 21 U.S.C. § 321(g), whether an article is a “drug” turns substantially on its intended use, which the FDA infers from how it is labeled, marketed, and sold. Our age gate and research-purpose certification are part of how we keep the intended use of our products firmly within laboratory research. They are not a device for placing an unapproved drug into consumer hands, and they do not make any product suitable for human or animal use.
FTC Act, Section 5 — unfair or deceptive practices
Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act prohibits unfair or deceptive acts and practices in commerce. It is why this page states our age rule plainly rather than burying it, why the checkout box is not pre-ticked, why our cancellation and refund terms are set out before you pay, and why we do not make health, therapeutic, or performance claims anywhere on our site.
Mail, Internet, or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule (16 C.F.R. Part 435)
The Mail Order Rule requires us to ship within the time we state, or within 30 days if we state no time, and to notify you and offer a cancellation with a prompt full refund if we cannot. An order held for age verification is handled within that framework: we tell you it is on hold, we tell you what we need, and if it cannot proceed we cancel and refund rather than holding your money.
Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act (15 U.S.C. §§ 8401–8405)
ROSCA requires clear disclosure of all material terms before billing information is obtained, express informed consent to the charge, and a simple cancellation mechanism. Our checkout discloses the age restriction, the research-use restriction, and the possibility of an ID request before you enter payment details, and takes your express consent through the certification box.
Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (15 U.S.C. §§ 6501–6506)
COPPA governs the online collection of personal information from children under 13. Pepticore.co is not directed to children, we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13, and if we learn that we have, we delete it promptly. A parent or guardian who believes a child has provided information to us should contact us using the details at the foot of this page.
Controlled Substances Act and no federal age statute
None of the peptides currently listed on Pepticore.co are scheduled controlled substances under the federal Controlled Substances Act, and no federal statute sets a minimum purchase age for laboratory research chemicals. Our 21-and-over rule is therefore a contractual standard we impose voluntarily, and it sits on top of, rather than in place of, every restriction that does apply.
State and regional rules we monitor
Age restriction in this category is being written at the state level, not the federal level, and it is moving quickly. Because our own threshold is 21 and applied nationwide, we already meet every state age requirement we are aware of. We still track these statutes individually, because several of them impose obligations beyond the age number itself — verification at the point of delivery, for example, or specific limits on what an online seller may do with a scanned ID.
GBL § 391-oo — under-18 sales ban with dual verification
New York General Business Law § 391-oo, effective April 22, 2024, prohibits the sale of over-the-counter diet pills and dietary supplements labeled, marketed, or otherwise represented for weight loss or muscle building to anyone under 18. It reaches online sellers as well as physical stores and requires age verification both at the point of sale and at the point of delivery, so a shipment must be signed for by an adult who can show proof of age. The statute survived a First Amendment challenge in early 2026 and remains in force. Pepticore’s 21 threshold and adult-signature option clear this requirement.
Home state — Prop 65, UCL, and pending age legislation
Renaissance Wave LLC is registered in California and manufactures there, so California law applies to us directly. We comply with Business & Professions Code §§ 17200 and 17500 on unfair competition and false advertising, and we provide Proposition 65 warnings where applicable under the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act. California has repeatedly considered legislation modeled on New York’s § 391-oo to restrict weight-loss and muscle-building product sales to minors, including AB 2030; we track each version and our 21 threshold already exceeds every proposal to date.
R.S. 37:23.5 — peptide prescribing statute
Louisiana Senate Bill 253 became Act No. 374 and enacted R.S. 37:23.5, effective August 1, 2026. It prevents state licensing boards from barring prescribers and pharmacists from providing peptides sourced from an FDA-registered 503B outsourcing facility or a compliant 503A compounding pharmacy. That framework governs clinical prescribing and dispensing. It does not apply to Pepticore: we are not a healthcare provider, a prescriber, or a compounding pharmacy, and we do not dispense any product for administration to a patient.
Massachusetts, New Jersey, Virginia, Washington and others
Model legislation based on New York’s statute has been introduced in several states, including Massachusetts, New Jersey, Virginia, and Washington, where Senate Bill 5622 would set an 18 threshold with proof-of-age requirements and specific rules on the use and retention of data captured by transaction scan devices. Because these bills move session by session, we do not publish a fixed list here. We monitor them and adjust before an effective date rather than after it.
Connecticut, Alabama, and the multistate letter
State attorneys general have become active enforcers in this category using consumer-protection powers independently of the FDA. Connecticut required a peptide seller to cease operations in 2025 and issued a statewide notice on GLP-1 compounding; Alabama’s attorney general obtained a restraining order against an unapproved peptide seller in November 2025; and more than 40 state attorneys general sent a coordinated letter to the FDA in 2025 raising contamination and mislabeling concerns. A central theme of that enforcement is that a “research use only” label does not protect a seller whose product is in substance marketed for human consumption. We take that seriously: our age gate, our certification, and our refusal rights exist so that the label matches the reality.
UDAP statutes and age of majority
Every state and the District of Columbia maintains an Unfair or Deceptive Acts and Practices statute governing advertising accuracy, pricing, disclosure, and order fulfilment, many of which give consumers a private right of action. We hold our listings, checkout flow, and support communications to the strictest applicable state standard rather than the federal minimum. Separately, the age of majority is 19 in Alabama and Nebraska and 21 in Mississippi, against 18 elsewhere — our 21 threshold clears all of them.
Federal policy is also in motion
The federal picture for peptides changed during 2026. On February 6, 2026 the FDA announced restrictions on certain active pharmaceutical ingredients, and on February 27, 2026 the Department of Health and Human Services announced that roughly 14 of the 19 peptides then on the FDA’s Category 2 restricted compounding list — including BPC-157, TB-500, CJC-1295, Ipamorelin, GHK-Cu, Selank, Semax, and MOTS-C — would be moved back to Category 1, while others such as Melanotan II, GHRP-2, GHRP-6, LL-37, and PEG-MGF were expected to remain restricted.
None of this changes what Pepticore sells or how. Compounding categories govern what a licensed pharmacy may prepare for a patient with a prescription. Pepticore is not a pharmacy and does not prescribe, compound, or dispense. Our products remain research-use-only materials, and our 21-and-over rule is unaffected by these developments.
Our commitment on emerging state law: because restriction in this category continues to change, we do not present the list above as a complete or permanent statement of every state rule. We actively monitor state legislative and enforcement activity, and we reserve the right to restrict, delay, or decline shipment of any product to any state or buyer where we reasonably believe the sale would violate state law, regardless of what a buyer has represented to us. Buyers remain independently responsible for confirming that purchase, possession, and use of a given compound is lawful in their own state before ordering.
Privacy law and identity documents
An age check collects some of the most sensitive data we will ever hold about you. State privacy law treats it that way, and so do we.
State consumer privacy statutes
A government identification number is classified as sensitive personal information under the California Consumer Privacy Act as amended by the CPRA, and comparable categories exist under the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act, the Colorado Privacy Act, the Connecticut Data Privacy Act, the Utah Consumer Privacy Act, the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act, the Oregon Consumer Privacy Act, and the other comprehensive state privacy laws now in force. Those statutes limit how sensitive data may be used, require purpose limitation and data minimization, and give consumers rights of access, correction, deletion, and appeal.
This is precisely why we ask you to redact your ID number before sending a document. We do not need it, and not collecting it is better than securing it.
Biometric and health-adjacent data
We do not perform facial recognition, facial geometry matching, or any other biometric comparison as part of our age checks, and we do not ask a third-party provider to do so on our behalf. That keeps our process clear of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, the Texas Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act, and Washington’s My Health My Data Act, all of which impose consent, notice, and in the case of BIPA private-right-of-action exposure on biometric processing.
Minors’ data receives additional protection under state law — for example, opt-in consent requirements for consumers aged 13 to 16 under the CCPA. Since we do not knowingly sell to anyone under 21, we should never be holding a minor’s data at all; if we discover that we are, we delete it.
Notice at collection
When we ask for identification we tell you, at that moment, what we are collecting, why we are collecting it, how long we will keep it, and who will process it. Full details of your rights, our disclosures, and how to make a request are in our Privacy Policy, our Cookie Policy, and our Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information page.
Google Shopping and Merchant Center compliance
Where Pepticore appears in Google Shopping or Google Ads, we hold our listings, feed data, and landing pages to Google’s published policies as well as to U.S. law. Age restriction is one part of that; accurate, non-promotional presentation of a regulated product is the larger part.
The policies that apply to us
- Healthcare and medicines. We make no claim that any product diagnoses, treats, cures, mitigates, or prevents disease, and we do not present any product as comparable to a prescription medicine.
- Unapproved pharmaceuticals and supplements. We do not market research compounds as supplements, do not use Supplement Facts panels, and do not list any compound that Google identifies as an unapproved substance.
- Dangerous products and services. We do not describe physiological effects on the human body, dosing, administration routes, or cycles anywhere in feed data, ad copy, or on a landing page reached from an ad.
- Misrepresentation. Prices, availability, shipping times, refund terms, and the identity of the seller are stated accurately and consistently between the feed, the product page, and checkout.
- Adult-oriented and age-restricted content. Where a product or destination carries an age restriction, we disclose it clearly on the landing page rather than only at checkout — which is one reason this page exists as a linked, crawlable policy.
- Editorial and professional requirements. Our destination works on desktop and mobile, publishes a business name, address, phone number, and email, carries a secure checkout, and links a visible refund and returns policy from every product page.
How we apply them in practice
- Our age restriction is stated on the product page and on this policy page, not disclosed for the first time at checkout.
- Restricted or ambiguous compounds are excluded from the Merchant Center feed rather than submitted and appealed.
- We never present a research compound alongside language implying weight loss, muscle gain, athletic performance, anti-aging, or any other human outcome.
- Landing pages reached from an ad carry the same research-use-only framing as the rest of the site, because Google evaluates the destination, not only the ad.
- Our business identity, registered address, support email, phone number, and hours are published and match our Merchant Center account.
- Shipping, returns, refunds, and cancellation terms are published and linked before the buyer reaches payment.
Compliance with an advertising platform’s policy is not the same thing as compliance with the law, and neither one makes a product suitable for human use. We treat them as separate obligations and meet both.
Your rights when an order is age-checked
An age check is a control we apply, not a licence to treat you unfairly. These are the commitments that go with it.
- You are told before you pay. The age restriction and the possibility of an ID request are disclosed on the product page and at checkout, before payment details are taken.
- You are told promptly if an order is held. We contact you, explain what we need, and give you a reasonable period to respond.
- You get a full refund, with no fee. If we refuse or cancel on eligibility grounds, we refund everything you paid, including shipping, to the original payment method.
- You can cancel while an order is on hold. An order held for verification has not shipped, so you may cancel it at any point before release and be refunded in full.
- You can ask for a human review. A refusal is reviewable by a second member of the team on request.
- You keep your privacy rights. Access, correction, deletion, portability, and appeal rights apply to verification records as they do to any other personal information.
- You keep your statutory remedies. Nothing here limits rights you have under the FTC Act, the Mail Order Rule, your state’s UDAP statute, or your card issuer’s chargeback process.
- You are not profiled or scored publicly. A failed check is used to decide that one order and our future dealings with you; it is not sold, published, or shared with advertisers.
Parents, guardians, and young buyers
If you are under 21
You may not buy from Pepticore.co, open an account, ask another person to buy on your behalf, or take delivery of an order. This is not negotiable and there is no exception for a school, college, or personal research project. If you need research-grade materials for supervised academic work, the correct route is through your institution’s purchasing office under the supervision of a faculty member who is themselves eligible.
If you are looking for these compounds for personal health reasons, please stop and speak with a licensed physician or pharmacist. These are unapproved materials, they are not medicines, and no part of our catalog is safe or lawful to take.
If you are a parent or guardian
If you believe someone under 21 has created an account, placed an order, or received a shipment from us, contact us immediately at contact@pepticore.co or on +1 (571) 688-3488. We will locate and close the account, cancel any open order, refund any payment taken, and where the order has already shipped we will work with you on return and disposal.
We will also delete the personal information associated with that account, subject only to records we are legally required to retain.
We treat reports of this kind as our highest-priority support category and we do not require you to prove the relationship before we act to stop a shipment.
Changes to this policy
Age restriction in this category is being legislated actively at the state level, and platform policies change as well. We review this page whenever a relevant statute takes effect, an enforcement action changes what is expected of sellers like us, our catalog changes, or our verification process changes. The “last updated” date at the top of this page always reflects the version currently in force.
Continued use of Pepticore.co after an update constitutes acceptance of the revised policy. Where a change materially affects orders already placed, we will apply the version that was in force when the order was made. We encourage researchers to review this page before placing a repeat order.
Talk to a real person, weekdays
If your order is on hold, if you are not sure what documentation we need, or if you want to report a suspected underage purchase, contact us directly. Our support team responds within one business day, and underage reports are handled the same day.