Yeah, I mean I've operated a bunch of different kinds of sites over the years, and I've seen all sorts of cons, especially when money is involved, what's the con - email addresses are a dime a dozen, but best practices are tougher to beat.
I run a site where you get a certain number of points for signing up. I guess in this case whoever was running the 'teleworm' just created bogies emails and was signing up a bunch of accounts to take advantage of the offer. The accounts belong to no one. Good times.