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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