ATMEGA32u4 - is this ebay chip genuine ?

Occasionally I find certain chips from ebay at prices far below the market retail selling price.
For example I found this at even less than $4 each.

Is there a catch? Anyone know if there fake ones out there? Even at the CPU level?
Anyway to tell ?

Not even claimed to be.

Brand: Unbranded/Generic MPN: Does Not Apply
Country/Region of Manufacture: Unknown

Could be the seller was just to lazy to complete the form but comparing the art on the chip with the documentation or a known good source sometimes helps as sometimes the counterfeits are different.

eBay, suspiciously cheap chips, caveat emptor...

Could be the seller was just to lazy to complete the form but comparing the art on the chip with the documentation or a known good source sometimes helps as sometimes the counterfeits are different.

Yes, I find that sellers are often too lazy to fill in all the details.

By 'comparing the art' you mean what is printed on the chip? Could things like batch number or other numbers shed any light into this?

Yeah. Sometimes they don't even do a good copy of the logo. I've seen people refer to suspicious batch numbers also. I saw one person in China claim "imported" is a clue to authenticity. I forget what he said "High Quality" meant. These are terms the Chinese themselves have come to know are code for authenticity.

Edit. Found it: "As a side note, Chinese sellers call genuine chips "imported", and known good clones "high quality". All other chips are lottery." This quote is from someone on another forum that claims to be "Final year EE PhD". Make of it what you will.

Some of those "deals" on ebay are anything but. I personally go to more reliable sources first, and the ATMEGA32u4 turns out to be cheaper.