I read a bit of the DansDeals and other linked message threads.

Wow. Just wow.

Maybe I am super-naive, but I had no idea people were in that deep. "Cheat early, cheat often" seems to be their motto. I am also amazed by the numbers of one-post wonders who rave about the "great service, fast delivery" of their favorite broker (ie themselves).

As a database administrator, I know how absurdly easy it is to track this kind of activity. I think these brain-challenged people think it's all done by computer so they can pull some kind of trick and go under the automatic algorithm radar and get away with it. How very wrong. Once a human being get their claws into a nest of cheaters, it's just a matter of time before all are caught. I do this kind of thing all the time, for a living, but not for an airline.

My best guess, now, is that the fraud people in the airlines (AA and others) are so busy with the big-time brokers that they just don't have the time and personnel to go after the small-time folks right away. Thus, the small-timers hear from the fraud analysts months after the suspect activity.

I almost feel like calling up AA and volunteering my services as a database analyst!