For me, scamming is anything that involves deception to make someone do things that he would normally not do had he known better. I personally consider this a form of scam, a "smart scam", but scam nonetheless...though I'd understand if some don't because there's a fine line that separates smarts from deception since someone needs to be smarter over someone to deceive, you can either focus on the smart deed or the deceitful deed depending on your appreciation. Anyway, that's beside the point, my opinion about the topic is I think this is not a cool way of merching...merchants should rely on facts and speculate the future whether short term, mid term, or long term...merching by deception (or smarts) is an attempt to shortcut the art of trading (not to mention it is highly destructive to the buyer) which is also unfair to those merchants who are doing things the right way. These people should be penalized.