Did you have a pretty good idea that this was the case before sending them to TI? Hardware design fascinates me and I'm just curious how something like this goes down.

We actually thought it was a problem with TI's parts, which is why we sent it to TI (we had a dedicated TI rep that came by every 2-3 weeks). When it came back that the package was empty it was actually a little embarrassing for us, since everyone immediately knew they were fakes. A bunch of calls went out and eventually one of the manufacturing managers tracked down the purchasing guy in the factory that said something like, "Oh this was a small run and I didn't want to buy a whole reel so I just ran down to the corner electronics market and picked up a 100."