I think it says something quite dark about our society as a whole that we have basically commoditised distress and are encouraging some people often themselves in dire circumstances to prey on others to the benefits of the middle men. I find these new pimps scarier than the old sort in that they pretend to have clean hands.
Sounds like credit card fraud to me. Bots using stolen cards to scrape OF content. Also easily verifies that the number works before attempting a pricier purchase.
I’ve subscribed for one month to two different creators just to check the content. Neither was interesting enough to maintain a subscription. I don’t think the described behavior sounds nefarious.