RE: CRIME FW: Warning concerning Hotel Key Cards

From: Brian Jackson (brian@sterling-nets.com)
Date: Wed Oct 29 2003 - 14:16:08 PST

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    It looks like this is an urban legend:
    
    
    Hotel Room Keys Have Your Personal Information on Them Including Credit
    Card Numbers-Fiction!
    http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/k/keycards.htm
    
    
    Claim:   Hotel room keycards are routinely encoded with personal
    information which can be easily harvested by thieves. 
    
    Status:   False. 
    
    Example:   [Collected on the Internet, 2003] 
    http://www.snopes.com/crime/warnings/hotelkey.asp
    
    
    
    Brian Jackson
    Sterling Network Solutions
    
    -----Original Message-----
    From: Sarah Mocas [mailto:sarah@private] 
    Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2003 1:59 PM
    To: crime@private
    Subject: CRIME FW: Warning concerning Hotel Key Cards 
    
    
    
    
    Something that I received from a friend.
    
    > Warning concerning Hotel Key Cards
    > 
    > The following is provided for information and further dissemination, 
    > as appropriate.
    > 
    > 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 through-out the industry.
    > 
    > Although room keys differ from hotel to hotel, a key obtained from one
    
    > well-known hotel chain that was being used for a regional Identity 
    > Theft Presentation was found to contain the following the information:
    > 
    >     a.. Customers (your) name
    >     b.. Customers partial home address
    >     c.. Hotel room number
    >     d.. Check in date and check out date
    >     e.. 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 tak! e 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.
    > 
    



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