I already notice it before they massively farming in this forum, though this also happens in few other locals.
How do they manage to earn merits like that?
It's easy, just create alt accounts as many as possible, then they participate in merit giveaway thread or create merit fishing thread. Every merits they got from genuine users and merit sources, they send it to their alt accounts.
Let's say one of the user earn 50 merits, this user can distribute 25 sMerits, then the next user can distribute 12 sMerits, then next user can distribute 6 merits and so on. That's why they're growing very fast.
Unfortunately, merit abuse can't be tagged since people will ask address, social media etc connections first, which is they already know how to hide it.
I'm sure most of those that come to mind, like Brainboss, Charles-Tim, Igebotz, Mia Chloe, Satoprincess and many others have earned their merits honestly.
I agree, although there are 95% abusers on there, there are still few genuine users.