My view is that it's not a scam, just a fuckup. The fuckup was compounded by sam coming on here and making promises he couldn't deliver on. (like "we'll be back on the btcguild top 25 in an hour!") which made it look a lot more like a scam and like he was completely incompetent.
Yes and probably shitting the backlash from the community, look at the thread 500 pages ago. He was getting the Spanish Inquisition from the fudsters, I would say fuck it and not communicate and put the effort into getting it fixed. Then the hardware fails for whatever reason, shit what do I do? Ill have my arse handed to me again, ill just say 2 weeks. Finally I realise I need help and pay for external help. Just a view, might be right, might be wrong.
Either way time has come for an open book and some honesty, Sam fucked up hard not coming to the community for help, if he had he would of gained trust and we would have more information. I just hope this QA goes through and we get information.