**IMPORTANT: Hotel Room Keys**

[CrimsonTide4]

I just received this in a forward. I checked urban legends sites and did not find it. If anyone knows of disputing information to the contrary, please share.


Subject: FYI - Hotel Travel

Southern California law enforcement professionals assigned to detect new threats to personal security issues, recently discovered what type of information is embedded in the credit card type hotel room keys used throughout the industry.

Although room keys differ from hotel to hotel, a key obtained from the "Double Tree" chain that was being used for a regional Identity Theft Presentation was found to contain the following the information:

Customers (your) name
Customers partial home address
Hotel room number
Check in date and check out date
Customers (your) credit card number and expiration date!


When you turn them in to the front desk your personal information is there for any employee to access by simply scanning the card in the hotel scanner. An employee can take a hand full of cards home and using a scanning device, access the information onto a laptop computer and go shopping at your expense.

Simply put, hotels do not erase these cards until an employee issues the card to the next hotel guest. It is usually kept in a drawer at the front desk with YOUR INFORMATION ON IT!!!!

The bottom line is, keep the cards or destroy them! NEVER leave them behind and NEVER turn them in to the front desk when you check out of a room. They will not charge you for the card.


Information courtesy of:

Sergeant K. Jorge,
Detective Sergeant,
Pasadena Police Department

[Gina1201]

I think this is true. My boss sent this out to EVERYONE is my office, especially since many of the people in our office travel VERY frequently. I will begin to SNIP, SNIP, SNIP!!

[CrimsonTide4]

Originally posted by Gina1201
I think this is true. My boss sent this out to EVERYONE is my office, especially since many of the people in our office travel VERY frequently. I will begin to SNIP, SNIP, SNIP!!

Thanks, I used to in undergrad work for a hotel but I never did any of that. I like life OUTSIDE of bars.

I will be passing this on.

[CrimsonTide4]

This is LEGIT. I posted it on a listserve for sorors only and a Soror called to confirm.

I just got off the phone with the Pasadena Police Department (626.744.4501). The operator told me that Sergent does work there. And that she sent the message to the operators also. She said she gets over 20 calls a day verifying the information.

[Gina1201]

Originally posted by CrimsonTide4
This is LEGIT. I posted it on a listserve for sorors only and a Soror called to confirm.

I just got off the phone with the Pasadena Police Department (626.744.4501). The operator told me that Sergent does work there. And that she sent the message to the operators also. She said she gets over 20 calls a day verifying the information.

Thanks Investigator CT4 for checking up on that!!

[ladygreek]

I never bother to turn my room key in since I do express check out. Now I am really glad I don't.

[mu_agd]

thanks for posting this! i passed it on to my sister who spends five days a week in hotels for her job. definitely something i think she needs to know about!

[9dstpm]

Wow. I really did not know that!! I will make sure that I cut up my room key when I leave hotels from now on!!! Good advice especially since I'm in the process of preparing for National Convention in July!! Thanks for the info!

[The1calledTKE]

Well I used to work for a hotel when I was in college. I know at least at my hotel there was no way to tie the key card to a computer to put all that info on a card. Only thing it would tell you was which room the key was good for.

[adduncan]

Pardon the intrusion, ladies....

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but this story is not accurate.

Snopes.com debunked the original post as an urban legend as of October 19.

The article on Snopes repeated the original post verbatum, with the following clarification (snipped for brevity).....

"However, all of the hotel representatives and employees we spoke with maintained that encoding personal information on keycards is neither a former nor a current practice, and none of the access control system providers we contacted said their hotel keycard systems are configured to allow personal information to be encoded on keycards. In any event, turning up a single case of something that might have happened in the past by mistake under systems no longer in use hardly justifies a warning like the one issued, which suggests that the practice is current, ongoing, and widespread. "

The entire story is here:
http://www.snopes.com/crime/warnings/hotelkey.asp

Adrienne

[D.COM]

Two of my favorite Urban Legend/Hoax sites are:

http://www.urbanlegends.com/ulz/

http://www.snopes.com

I have them bookmarked and if I am not sure about an email, I check there first. They are pretty good with verifying information.