No, I'm not talking about friends or people I know. He's not a friend of mine and I created this thread to find out how likely it is that other users (if promoting a scam site) are ban like that. However, if the ban is only given due to plagiarism, then it is unlikely that other participant will be banned even if they use a signature from a scam site.
No. You won't get banned in anyway for scamming people. You can advertise scams in your signature and not get banned. You will only get negative trust ratings and flags probably and that's it. The account will be practically useless for any sig camps though so that punishment is as good as getting banned.