Don't think anyone expected them to be accurate.
That's funny. I seem to recall you saying that you were unsure if they were shipped figures or sold figures. Strangely, that didn't give me the impression that you thought they were completely fabricated figures.
the numbers were close enough to give you a good indicator of how things were going.
How does making up a number from the top of your head and then adding an arbitrary constant over a period of time get you to "close enough to be a good indicator"?
The figures were often posted by more reliable sources and usualy matched up quite well within a week.
Well if "more reliable" figures are matching up well with a php random number generator, I'd be questioning the "more reliable" figures personally.