In the past couple of years, the only times I can think of that developers have made vanity purchases, the average would have been affected by a few pennies at most. Calling that fraud feels incorrect.
It could inflate prices much more than by just a few pennies if done soon enough. When vanity purchases are done very early, they can temporarily raise the average price by few dollars, which will then be sustained by those who want the "beat the average" games.
Fraud may be a bad word for that, but reading through the "biggest buyers" lists leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
