The only time I've done this for work is when I worked retail, and the store managers were never decent at scheduling anyway. There were plenty of issues with overstaffing one area while understaffing another, and despite some of those areas being neighbors, the respective departments would refuse to share workloads. There were times when I would request days off, only to be scheduled then anyways. I'm sure the managers were well aware of what I was doing when I called in sick, but I didn't care because they didn't take the time to care for me. 

I did it a few times in high school to catch up on work, mostly because I'm a terrible procrastinator. I've never faked a sick day in college, although most of my professors wouldn't even blink if their entire class wound up skipping. 

As far as a full-time job, I don't think I'd ever do this, as others have mentioned it unfairly balances the workload. There are times when it might be unavoidable in life to take sick days, but don't just fake it because you're lazy or don't feel like it.