I picked up two from the ebay link above and they both worked. I got one from another seller and it worked too. How are you testing or trying to use it? When playing a season it asks you to register the card (name, address, etc) but doesn't when using the card for the skills sessions. When using one of the cards in diag mode smart card reader test, it said "no player's card found" or something but then I used the skill session and it wrote to the card. Followed that up with another diag test and the reader found the card. I just used diag again on all 3 and they all said "no card found" but they work.
I also tried to circumvent the whole $10/card by purchasing some blank smart cards
SLE4428 Blank White Smart Card
and SLE4442 Cards - White PVC
Those didn't work but neither of those have the magnetic stripe on them and the chip is definitely different. Will post pics soon