I have said, I think for the last 10 years at least, that MDEA is surely extremely rare. Aside from novelty value I cannot see the point in anyone making it. (And no, it is not made accidentally when MDMA is manufactured. Neither can MDMA be realistically made from MDEA and vice versa).
About the only time I could see it being done is if for some reason a group was sitting on an MDXX precursor, such as MDP2P, they needed cash flow quick smart, and for certain reasons they just couldn't procure methylamine (one of the most watched chemicals on the planet). So they opt for MDEA, using ethylamine instead, which in relative terms wouldn't raise an eyebrow and still provide them with a highly desirable product (albeit needing a greater dose). Of course whilst that might make sense, if they went for ammonia, also a far less watched chemical when it is not pressurised into a liquid and sitting inside a gas cylinder, they would get MDA. With MDA's better effects and lower dose, surely they would go with this option. (I might add the MDMA drought was not for want of methylamine but of course the more crucial principal precursors we know all about).
Unless the pill is lab tested it is impossible for ANYONE to say with any degree of accuracy they have had MDEA, aside from the person that made it. What you have been told is meaningless because this person cannot know unless they are the manufacturer or they were arrested, their pills got tested and the police told them what the results were and they happen to be MDEA. The mere fact people bang on, over and over again, about differing purity levels and the myriad of different impurities within a MDMA pill or powder contributing to such a huge difference on the effects experienced and even the comedown later, it is nonsensical that they would also be able to pick a MDEA pill because they simply "felt a little different" this time.
For me comedowns were far worse when I was just starting out and the pills were undoubtedly of better quality and of a higher dose. The old saying, the higher you go up the further you must come down. But everybody is different and I hardly think the degree of comedown is a reliable guide to the substance consumed. Perhaps the definition of "comedown" needs to be clarified too, as after reading some of the comments on here I think people might be talking about different concepts.
I have said this many times before but I may as well say it again. I know a person who has seen hundreds, if not a thousand or more lab results from seized pills in Australia over a number of years (however, I will concede not in the last 12 months). Of the pills which contained some type of MDXX substance, the vast majority were MDMA only. MDA is certainly the next most common, then probably MDMA/MDA combos and then other random MDMA combos involving a whole host of other drugs. MDEA barely cracked a mention. There was one strong green mitsi years ago that had MDMA and MDEA but of all of those different results, MDEA as the sole active substance in a pill might have been found no more than three times. Now that doesn't account for every pill that's ever been across our country over the last ten years. Of course it doesn't. But the sample size was certainly large enough to be statistically relevant and the only conclusion that can be drawn from it is that MDEA is so rare to be almost non-existent.
I have certainly come across safrole like chemicals being used in dodgy pills to fool the testers. The smell and the taste is a dead giveaway but I cannot really describe it. The MDP2P smell that we all know and love is quite different to safrole. More sweet/lolly like is the only way I can describe it. And the best MDMA crystal I enjoyed recently (translucent brown chunks, extremely hard to break, and fizzing, violent to black test results) had no smell at all (which is expected for very high purity MDMA).