At the very least it is misuse of Company resources. They can probably sue these goons for every single dollar they made and then some, especially if they are found guilty, which they probably will be.
Even at that, you have, what is essentially insider information on the raw sales data of a company that way since you are essentially seeing the same information that the company itself sees, but just a rather linear proportion of it.If you have the Capital One portion of Chipotle sales, and you know the electronic transaction market share of Capital One cards, and you know the proportion of cash to electronic transactions; I would not be surprised one bit if you could essentially predict the sales figures down to within 1% margin.
Even at that, you have, what is essentially insider information on the raw sales data of a company that way since you are essentially seeing the same information that the company itself sees, but just a rather linear proportion of it.If you have the Capital One portion of Chipotle sales, and you know the electronic transaction market share of Capital One cards, and you know the proportion of cash to electronic transactions; I would not be surprised one bit if you could essentially predict the sales figures down to within 1% margin.