I got a rather remarkable call today.
Backstory:
A month ago I bought $2K worth of cards as a test.
Then I went to a different, more convenient mall, and bought $9K. When I went in, they suggested I fill out a corporate form and submit it for approval.
Last week I was on vacation and went to two malls very far from home and was allowed, on the spot, to buy $12.5K cards as a corporate account, at the corporate price.
I redeemed almost all the above cards for MO as WM.
Then this week I went into the second mall, the one close to home, where I had submitted the corporate form and was allowed to buy only $10K at the consumer price.
This morning I got a call from someone at Simon Corporate (whose name I will omit). She said "We know you're doing manufactured spending, so we will be happy to sell you $10K a day, 7 days a week, at the personal price, but we can't sell on a corporate basis if you're doing manufactured spending because it's a personal activity." She used the phrase "manufactured spending" 3-4 times.
So this should add quite a lot of clarity. You don't have to stay under the radar if you're doing it as an individual.
It's possible that if I had been more subtle, like spreading around the MO purchases and doing it less frequently, they wouldn't have realized, but to me that would defeat the purpose. I don't want to carry an inventory and find multiple locations for MO's - I just want to walk into WM and walk out.
If anyone has issues of getting shut down for personal purchases, PM and and I'll share the individual's name. She was really nice and on the ball. She said they are limited by federal regulations. (Unlike WM, where "federal regulations" are whatever they decide they might be that day at that store, I actually believe this lady.)