Battle - Substrate Balls Expanded Clay 20L

Ordered 20L of these expanded clay beads from this seller, having bought 5L of exactly the same from another seller, who is currently out of stock. I am transitioning my orchids to semi-hydroponics as it will regulate the water supply better. The lack of degrading bark/moss should prevent roots being suffocated. The orchids already moved over seem to be doing ok and the beads are actually really attractive. I therefore wanted to order again and found this seller, advertising, so it appeared, the same brand. I was really looking forward to this product arriving, so imagine my confusion and disappointment when what arrived was in plain ziplock bags and was NOTHING like the original. I even washed the dust from some of the misshapen tiny scraps, just to see if that made it more like the original, it did not. I therefore decided to return the item.I then started to look for alternatives and paid attention to the reviews as did not feel I could trust the pictures or even the consistency of the product so was looking for one with the most reviews saying the product was as expected. This is when I discovered that this seller has a history of sending out bags of whatever it is, in lieu of what you are meant to be getting. If you look at the photo you can see the difference between the brown, larger, attractive, clay beads on the right and the product recieved from this seller which is none of those things (I am not even sure of the 'clay' descriptor).It really pains me to put one star against this product because it is NOT the product, it is at best an error on the part of the supplier, or at worst an attempt to sell an inferior product under its name. Bearing in mind the frequency of reviews like this being given to this supplier for these types of products I feel it may be the latter.