Reading your comments it looks like you have already decided against them so why bother asking anything.
I've not decided, and don't need to. I'm not looking to get into mining in any way. I was worried about my friend buying a contract and wanted to know if they were as dodgy as they sounded.
It's too late - he already bought it - so I guess time will tell.
There are arguments both ways to say that GAW is a ponzi. They do have some level of proof that they have recently purchased over 1 PH/s from bitmantech however it is less clear that their scrypt miners are "real"
Plus the fact that they do not allow contract holders to point their mining power to pools of their choice is less then ideal