[jandrese]

Buying the discounted hardware on eBay is somewhat marginal as "good faith". That said, RTL-SDR hardware barely exists in the normal supply chain so consumers often have little choice but to roll the dice on eBay.

The one I bought came delivered in a plastic baggie in a padded envelope. It could have been stolen for all I know.

Is there a way to check which serial numbers were stolen? Can I demand a seller post a picture of the device with the serial number so I can check? How can I be sure they won't lie?

[pavel_lishin]

Kind of; they posted the list on a forum and appear to have tweeted about it: https://www.sdrplay.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3225

There isn't really a centralized or standardized way to do this, though. I guess if I'm buying some smart-ish hardware, I just have to google around for the company and hope I did a good job.