Look, I've said this about a million times already - any single mistake/broken promise/failed feature/whathaveyou can be explained and apologized for and otherwise swept under the rug. It's the OVERALL picture that we are talking about. Not about Mastercard, but about the pattern of GAWCEO implying partnerships (Amazon, Walmart, Gyft, etc) where none existed. Not about the Honors program, but about the ludicrous promise of a floor and CAF and "moving the market" etc. Not about failing to pay one invoice, but about an inbox full of overdue bills. We could probably go on for 1200 more pages about this.
I agree there is a pattern here but to identify what that pattern is requires breaking down the elements of the pattern and addressing them individually.
Calling "affiliate programs" partnerships is more of a marketing slip than an outright scam. Did they have an Amazon affiliate? Yes I believe they did, they get a commission for items bought through them (higher if they directly link to products). These are free and handed out like candy. Gyft also has an affiliate program. Walmart had one with Gyft at one time and I believe they do for certain uses (they dislike digital cards I believe because of a high degree of barcode theft in the stores and people waiting for them to be loaded and then using them - only takes a smart phone with a camera to photograph it and then present it in the store).
In fact I believe everyone they said was a "partner" had an affiliate program. While partner conveys a stronger relationship than an affiliate, generally invoking visions of revenue sharing and a tighter relationship when viewed in the context of marketing speak I think that one is explainable without it being scammy. In fact Gyft even calls affiliates partners in some of their literature eg
http://gyft.wufoo.com/forms/m4ho4890odxfkn/As for the price floor, I generally believe they thought originally they would be able to do that. They did not consider arbitrage, they did not consider that other exchanges would be offering coins and they could not possibly suck up all the ones that people would dump. This can be because of a cult like devotion to paycoin - why would anyone want to dump them or otherwise trade them. This mindset is what you see politicians do when proposing legislation because they surround themselves with people who all agree with them and thus believe that everyone agrees with them. When you operate in an isolated bubble full of devotees its common for people to think that everyone thinks as they do, after all everyone they talk to agrees with them and they believe themselves to be normal people.
I think the overdue bills is more of a symptom than a scam. The cult like devotion to the coin is, as I said before, akin to a gambler that thinks they can win the next bet and then be set. I think that they believed that if they could just last a little longer it would take off and all the problems would be solved. A scam implies they never intended to pay the bills, to short customers, to defraud people. I do not think they went into it with that mindset (mens rea in legal speak) but rather it was just a poorly conceived idea that was implemented even worse and things took longer to get going (like being able to use them for anything useful). Utility is where a coins real value comes from, if you cant spent the coins what good are they? If they have no value who wants to keep them? If everyone dumps them and you solely invested in that then how can you pay your bills?
So I do not see a scam, when viewed in this light becuase I, like you, could go on for 1200 pages. I do see incompetence and what appears to be an overly optimistic view of the coins value and utility.