Oh, it looks like it's much simpler than all this. I looked more carefully at the ebay auction pics and noticed a few things that provide answers. It's all just a case of ebay fraud/misrepresentation/ stupidity, as usual. (I'm focusing on this ebay auction because I already bought it through my buddy in the USA. Doh!)
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/221949985186
1. The PN on the pkg sticker doesn't match the PN on at least 2 of the sticks (9995315-028). The middle stick in the pic does appear to be the correct PN (9905321-031), so that probably has 9 chips. The left one is not visible, but could be also. The open stick and the right-hand stick are clearly the wrong PN, and that PN googles out to be a non-ECC stick.
2. The "sealed" sticks (according to his description) are obviously not sealed, beacause the sticks are in 3 different orientations in the package, and obviously Kingston ships them all the same. Should been an immediate tip off.
So the seller either is ignorant or fraudulent. Even with his "no returns" statement ebay will force a refund for misrepresented goods.
Once again reinforces my belief that some categories of goods are very risky to buy on ebay.