Your reference should in fact be pointing to a case of them scamming or trying to scam an individual.
For something to be a scam there does not have to be any direct financial damage (It could be
indirect, collateral, or even non-existent).
A.
Unlike copyright law violations, plagiarism is truly the theft of ideas. It is singularly the most reprehensible wrong that can be committed within the realm of the intellect; and it is inherently fraudulent, an intellectual scam by definition.
The logical argument deriving from the reasoning by OP is very sound without any subjective nonsense. Maybe theymos will give his input on this.