I hate guesses, so I googled-
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It's a green group, but I doubt they could get away with mis-information for long ;-)
I have a hundred cfl's in use from the original LOA 22w circlines to the latest 4w mini cfl's. I've had maybe eight failures and two "catastrophic", a bright flash and that was all. I marker the year installed, the backdoor 12w U tube is still running on a 1987 tube, but the 4w mini died in a year. I'm not including three 13w spirals and two 22w circs I flat out dropped (broken) over time.
I agree with Don, there are a lot of poorly built counterfeit cfl's from China at the "junk" dollar stores. (not the Dolgen and Family Dollar like chains) Even the UL, ETL, etc marks are counterfeit.
I do return bad products, even the "no returns" junk stores at least gave store credit for something else. Manufacturers are very sensitive about bad/poor products. Usually they already became aware of the problem and have generous coupon programs to buy redesigned or other products they make.
They really do want happy customers. Dad had a "lifetime guarantee" pocket lighter he bought during WWII, the manufacturer replaced it 3 times when it "wore out" during his lifetime. It pays, he also faithfully bought their other products.
Unfortunately, the high tech products / services companies haven't seen the light yet... But if we are willing to accept some of their crap, shame on us!
-larry / dallas