Formerly, a minimum of 15 accounts per server. With the party reduction to 8 characters and the server merge, I imagine things are messy.

Marie Therese used to run the Cedarwood group with a handful of "Bes xyz" characters.

On uncommon occasion, you'll find one that has a jittery Exorcist-like head, soloing some monsters. For these, please report them to the Special Task Force (link near bottom) to flag for investigation of third-party software.

People do buy the gil (even on closed beta accounts). They're a separate community often staying away from official forums as are those who specialize in using bots have their own community.

If the RMT are of a decent lot, they are paying their dues using legitimate means for the software copy and subscription, in which case, SE makes some money.

If they are not so respectable (which is usually the case), they are using stolen and false credit cards on top of other things... If SE pursues these characters, ultimately, SE loses money from having to refund the cards, disputing the incident, and investigating the accounts.