Sorry, can't help but no its not BS, If the plate says 7 seats there must be 7 seats. A lot of mechanics doing inspections never basically gave a shit about the seats and just passed it anyway, but I'm sure all states like were I am in NSW they are really cracking down on what they use 2 turn a blind eye 2 because the authorities are cracking down hard on them.

I had a crack in the window they should have not passed and my old mechanic said if I got pulled up from the RTA that the crack only happened a few k's before being pulled up.