This post is very old, but I wanted to say that I did not opt in for the PhD because of course it is extremely unethical, detailed by the answers you provided. I knew it was ethically wrong, but I wasn’t sure if it was a common thing that was “done all the time”. My credentials were not sufficient for a top PhD program, so I elected to get my masters at a top school instead and ended up with full funding anyway, and perhaps afterwords apply to a top PhD program. Thank you all for your time and passion that were put into these responses.