Googling for the name of PA at least gives neos a chance to see there's something fishy out there, but neos are looking up book publishers, not specifically PA.
By the time they think to check out PA they may have already signed the contract.
If you google "book publishers" you get 3 sponsored links to what I will assume are fee-charging time wasters,
the next is for BookMarket, which can overwhelm with the choices listed,
the next is Hatchett--they like agents,
the next Penguin (finally--a slush pile!)
the next is AuthorHouse with an opening page that says they charge money, so the neos get the idea they are supposed to pay to publish.
After that it's Random House, HarperCollins, and THEN PA, with "Publish a novel today!" and a click leads you to their big, friendly flag-waving, Jesus-praising site that promises to make the whole scary process simple.
People LOVE simple.
The rest of us know better than to trust simple, but others make the mistake of thinking a big business won't *lie* to people just because they are a big business.
And BP ain't really responsible for safety issues on their oil rigs, 'cause they're big and everyone respects safety at all times, it just makes sense!
They see "bestsellers" on the opening page--not getting that those are not the titles on the NYT list, just PA's in house list, which is worthless.
Oh, look, their books get made into movies! ---not seeing that much of it is old information. Nor does it occur to them to check on the IMDB to see if anything came of those small fry deals.
And heck, "Click here to submit your book." Other sites have that well hidden as "submission guidelines" and you have to sub in a certain way or they don't take subs at all. But on PA it's EASY! "Hey, my story is in a file on this computer....okay I'll DO it! I'll just GO for it! and see what happens!"
Then a day later they get the "PA wants to give your book the chance it deserves" line and they're hooked.
They might look up some books, they might read testimonials, not thinking that the existence of the page itself is a tip off that this is a vanity site.
They read PA's weasel-worded FAQ page, which reassures them.
Next thing you know they're announcing the sale of their work on FaceBook.