Microchip, Maxim and TI have been known to be the best in giving samples. but lately Microchip has changed their policy and they dont give samples to people who do not belong to a company. the best of all is TI.
It is Extremely Unlikely that the can or would check on it anyway.
A lot of companies are a "Sole Proprietorship", such as my company.
Although "G.L. Chemelec" is my Registered company name, they wouldn't be able to check that out very easily.
speaking of company names, a strange thing happened to me. when i filled out the form at the microchip website i didnt give any company name. but then after my second order my profile changed and somehow my company name became Goodrich Corporation. after that all the samples i got had Goodrich Corporation written on the sticker.
but from what i know it isnt just the company name. the microchip samples site has the following message written on the first page
Please note that the online sample site no longer accepts orders from generic ISP accounts such as Yahoo and Hotmail. If you have previously registered with a generic email address, you may login and change your email address to a valid business or university account by choosing the change email address option.
so you have to have a valid bussiness or university account. but i have heard from some people that microchip can be fooled by some not-so-popular free email services.
after the policy change i havent ordered anything from microchip. has anyone had success???