Yes, I read them and there is 1 example of copy-paste.
As I understand when a lot of similar activities and/or spam comes from certain IP - it becomes evil and that's the reason why "friends" can't register again
But in this case, if somebody wants to rethink behavior and be good member of forum - it seems paying fee is the best option
You're right about evil IP, but it's not an option for OP and his friends since they got banned. Even if they will try to pay this fee to create new account, it would be ban evasion.