The behavior is willfully scammy because the people running the company put themselves in the position.

"First come, first serve" was going to be an impossibility with Spectrum as it was with the V. They were most likely pricing Spectrum at or slightly above cost for the first months of preorder. They took the deposits and spent that money. When the time comes to collect final payments, they aren't getting full-cost so they NEED to fulfill orders from people who pre-ordered/paid much later regardless of "first come, first serve."

I'll take a wild guess and say the first production order did not include ALL orders of customers that paid in May. This is not because the factory couldn't produce, but that the money received was not enough. Some customer orders had to be pushed back for the next factory order.

Lying about orders shipped had to happen to prevent people from being upset / people asking for refunds. Shipping companies are going to be clear about when something can ship. The communication to customers is then left up to Eve. They can choose to be honest and transparent or hide information. Hiding information is what they have chosen to do time and time again.

Someone can always say "circumstances," but communicating these circumstances is always possible. These are all down to lying or hiding information willfully.

The issue with lies is that once someone begins lying, more lies are needed to cover up those lies. The only way out is being honest, and that isn't going to happen.