If BFL is a scam then they are doing it all wrong... generally you don't ship products to the buyers if you are scamming them. Just saying.
They aren't shipping to the buyers, they are shipping to the press/reviewers! They are sending them to people and getting tons of free publicity and validation. That means more people to buy their product. How many of they shipped? 5? 10? How many more orders did they get from those? I bet a lot.
They have already shipped to some of the first preorders.
Basically, what we can conclude, is that they really suck at customer service and business planning. They have shipped other devices before and fucked up royally as well in terms of shipping time, shit happens.