Interesting, I Had a similar design using ADS1115 for a customer, who manufactured the boards at JLPCB (Part of LCSC I believe). All failed the initial POST in the firmware, but after reviewing a sample of them we found after self-calibration they were just fine in the application he wanted them for, so I just changed the firmware so the POST occurred after calibration.
Like you I have Never had issues with fake stuff from LCSC before, but I guess it can happen.
