well people still getting small refunds so that is better than just running away i agree that payments are really small but still it gives people some money

That wouldn't really be a good option, because several people who are owed significant amounts of Bitcoin know who the primary parties involved in this were. If payments and communication were to stop, I think it's reasonable to expect that a criminal inquiry would begin...which wouldn't result in any more payments, but it WOULD result in making life pretty miserable for the people who conducted this business. That's probably the main motivation behind BTC-Arbs making payments to people over the last year or so, even if it's been torturously slow.

IF the method of accumulating Bitcoin to pay people back is truly arbitrage, as chilly2k mentioned...it's been pretty stagnant lately, not a whole lot of movement on the markets. That makes it tough to profit from any kind of trading.