Originally Posted by MidnightLight

While this doesn't directly address the OP's question, I do work at one of the major companies which has been the subject of several churn opportunities over the past few years.

I'm not at liberty to disclose anything specific. But I will say that with all our extensive monitoring systems in place, sudden spikes in high-volume/high-value activity definitely do not go unnoticed for very long. I remember that for one particular time-limited promotion which was the subject of intense churning within a (roughly) 24 hour period, our key decision makers were made aware of the churning activity within the first two hours.

In my company's case, we generally deliberately do allow such activities to continue, since they are not illegal (even if they occasionally do skirt the boundaries of our T&Cs) and ultimately represent a very small percentage of our overall business (and thus are easily absorbed within our normal margins). As such, it is usually not worth the administrative costs and potential negative publicity to clamp down on such activities. Moreover, my company's corporate culture emphasizes siding with our customers whenever possible (which by the way was one thing that attracted me to work for them to begin with), so for most issues we give folks a lot of leeway anyway.

Having said that, my company's very healthy profit margin makes maintaining this benign attitude far easier for us than it might be for a company in a different financial situation....