There's this group of guys who whant to make some money, so they set up a club where you have to pay for membership, voting, and you get this member banner and a pat on the back. Some other folks want to feel elite, so they pay and walk around, waving their banners, put it in their forum profiles and on their blogs. Why even bother to talk about it, let them play in their sandbox.
Well the part where they go "here, invest in this scam, it's legit, we know" is where fraud starts.
And the part where they go "we're taking donations but not publishing any reports" is where the fraud ripens.