It's not even close to that cheap for an S1. Bitmain has them for $2.59 per GH as of right now. PBMining is mining at $2.20 per GH. You're saying that PBMining worked out some kind of deal that got them a price lower than that, that factored in the 1100watts per unit power charge and somehow gives them a profit that pays for the management of this operation for a bunch of full time workers?
Use your head. It's a scam.
You're entitled to your opinion and I won't try to change it. I will correct your facts though.
The S1 is
BTC0.484 per 180gh/s. 0.484/180=
BTC.002688888/gh/s
.00268*439=$1.17/gh/s
Draw of the unit is 360 W at the wall - not 1100.
If we were to assume their whole facility were antminers, that would put their total electric consumption per hour as follows:
((TotalHashrate/HashratePerUnit)*WattsPerUnit)/1000
((375500/180)*360)/1000=751
So in a given month thats ((30*24)*751)=540720
I think they said they were in canada: the average electric price in canada (1) for an industrial facility is $.0732/KWh CAD or $.07USD
540720*$.07=$37,850.4 Monthly Power Cost
Per GH that's 37850.4/375500=$0.1008 Cost per month.
Over 5 years that's $0.1008*(12*5)=$6
So - we can deduce that in order to maintain profit, they'll have to upgrade their hardware after a year assuming they are running S1's. But, customers have paid up front. So they have the capital to get new hardware.
Furthermore, since they are charging double the hardware cost, they could buy double the hardware, basically using the customer as a loan for them to build a huge mining farm half of which is mining for them.
Power consumption aside - baseline - they are basically doubling their money on hardware. Further profit can be derived from merged mining. Even further profit can be derived from the fact that their fixed payment calculator accounts for avg 10 minute blocks. As difficulty increase approaches blocks are solved faster, and then when difficulty increase arrives they pay out less. They are mining more than they are paying out. Users, like me, are okay with this because of their guaranteed fixed payout rate.
At 375TH/s they are making about $4,423.36 per month just in NAMECOIN. There's room for profit. Could it be a scam? Sure. Does it scream scam from the hilltops? Nah.
There's a risk involved. There's a risk in pre-ordering hardware.
But if you're going to say it has to be a scam - at least try to back that point up with correct figures.