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MixedNuts comments on Influence = Manipulation - Less Wrong Discussion
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Good question. A large part of the answer is probably that exploitation is considered manipulation by onlookers, and so potential exploiters (correctly) deem it ethical to refrain, or are punished.
Mass suicides in doomsday cults, and suicide pacts, suggest that it partially works on particularly vulnerable populations.
I suspect that it's often by staying within "safe" social circles in which people don't take advantage of them too hard.
Ok, that's scary... O_o
Not remotely as scary as a whole lot of other things that are also real and I know about. But still pretty scary.
And the thing you mentioned where they try to cooperate dosn't sound like it'd work very well, more like it'd just introduce even further vulnerabilities at least once you take it into account. But maybe it turns out more effective in practice.
Update: I've been playing around a bit with prisoner's dilemma simulations (not particularly ruthless ones). If nice retaliating strategies (like tit-for-tat) rise fast enough, then patches of unconditional cooperation can survive by leaning on them and each other. So it seems to works. My simulation wasn't particularly ruthless, though.