The only reason why he's locking the thread and self moderating it is to ensure that nobody can ever comment negatively on it, or expose his scam. Same thing with a telegram group, he can easily kick out any people that gets scammed.
The rates that he is offering on the gift cards he's selling is too good to be true, either that he's just scam you, or provide you with a code that is fraudulently obtained. Both of these scenarios isn't something that you would want.
It's not a particularly new scam, and if you read the stickies as well as his trust feedback you could have easily avoided this.
