He may not have stated that we are abusing merits per se. I think the right word would be farming merits but his language in the first line above indicates such. He's advising Fillipone to put us in his ignore list to teach others a lesson, isn't that an indication that we are merit farmers who are impatient to get the next batch of merits to the point that we'd cheat to do so? He called me out, and I'm just trying to clear the op and nothing more.
Forgive me if you think I'm overreacting but you'd do the same especially if someone just wakes up one day and decides to pick at your reputation.
I don't think that the main subject of this topic is you or any of the other users found within the quote. Yes, he does indicate that the said users should be put in ignore list for not following the rules whatsoever, might be an overexaggeration if you ask me, but that's not the point here. It's not abusing merit either, as you stated in your previous post as well, it is partially an in(direct?) way of begging for merit, which I personally don't fancy, but who am I to judge?
As for OP, great observation between the two accounts, I highly doubt it's an "innocent" mistake, the format of the application isn't something you copy from the previous user just like you could do with a signature campaign. I believe you have a solid case here.