Warface, same reason people troll in newsgroups. F'rex, there's someone who trolls the c.s.a.m NG (and has since ... 1994ish?) with a post that basically says "We're throwing away x number of amigas since they're no good to us any more" and then goes on in gristly detail about how 100 or 500 or 1000 Amiga systems were taken to a local landfill and crushed with a bulldozer, burned, smashed with hammers, or tossed into a nearby river...
The poster(s) then usually lament about how "We tried to get rid of them but nobody wanted to take them! They really are junk!"
They inevitably catch a few people who'll wail and moan about it...and then someone who's been on the NG a while will point out that the same message gets posted every eighteen months or so, and that way back when it was first posted, someone from the alleged area in Canada where this "tragedy" (didn't) occur(ed) confirmed that there was no such company by the name of the "offenders", nor was there any such landfill etc.
So why do they do it? To twist people's tails.
edit: Something somewhat like this did happen to me...buddy of mine (hi, Gregg!) is a film editor/CGI guy and when he was working on Dinosaur out in Los Angeles, he mentioned in passing during a phone convo that a co-worker had recently given away eight or so A2000's (all "Video Toasters" remarkets from NewTek) but didn't secure me one as he didn' t think I'd want it :-( :-( :-(
