Depends on what stage the bust happens. When a big broker or trader is taken down, all the tickets out there are invalidated and then the game of "you owe me for the tickets" starts. A common tagline on PMs is something along the lines of "this happened over a year ago! WHY are they coming after me now?!?!" Hard to restrain myself from writing back something -really- snotty and punishing-- but we all know that's not in my nature.

So, yes, while many folks "get in, get paid, get out"-- that's not the majority, and, if paypal was used, the saga can go on for a long time and include frozen paypal accounts, etc.

But, you're right, the profile of a guy who accumulates a quick 100K AAdv miles via credit card signup (or whatever) and then peddles those for a flight, he might very well be in and out before the eventual bust and the dozens of locked accounts that result.

For some reason though, many of the folks here on FT who get their accounts locked or terminated seem to have much more than average to lose, oddly. I think only 2 or 3 (out of dozens) of people who've PMd me recently appeared to have the attitude of "well, then if they got me they got me, at least I got paid."

And even those tend to change their tune later on!