Plastiic Hotel Key warning!

[bigfrank Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close bigfrank]

I got this by email, I had heard this once before but I am Not sure if it true or not.

>Ever wonder what is on your magnetic key card? IN most hotels.......
>Answer:
> > a. Customer's name > b. Customer's partial home address > c. Hotel
>room number > d. Check-in date and out dates > e. Customer's 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 the information on these cards until an employee re-issues the
>card to the next hotel guest. At that time, > the new guest's information
>is
>electronically "overwritten" on the card and the > previous gues! t's
>information ! is erased in the overwriting process. > > But until the
>card
>is rewritten for the next guest, it usually is kept in a drawer at the
>front
>desk with YOUR INFORMATION ON IT ! > > The bottom line is: Keep the
>cards,
>take them home with you, or destroy them. > > NEVER leave them behind in
>the room or room wastebasket, and NEVER turn them into the front desk when
>you check out of a room. > > They will not charge you for the card (it's
>illegal) and you'll be sure you are not leaving a lot of valuable personal
>information on it that could be easily lifted off with any simple scanning
>device card reader. > > For the same reason, if you arrive at the airport
>and discover you still have the card key in your pocket, do not toss it in
>an airport trash basket. > > Take it home and destroy it by cutting it
>up,
>especially through the electronic information strip! > > Information
>courtesy of: Pasadena Police Department > I personally have a small
>magnet
>and pass it across the magnetic strip several times, then try it in the
>door. It will not work. It erases everything on the card.

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

Not true. Check Urban Legends Reference Pages

The misinformation wave created by the detective's erroneous e-mail was so large the Pasadena police eventually issued a retraction explaining that the information it contained was based upon a single incident from several years earlier, and that they had no evidence the warning reflected a current or ongoing issue:

On October 6, 2003, Detective Sergeant Kathryn Jorge of the Pasadena Police Department received information from a group of Southern California fraud detectives who had formed a fraud investigations network through a local internet carrier. One of the members of this group from another San Gabriel Valley agency reported that in an investigation that he was personally involved in, he came across a plastic hotel card key from a major hotel that had personal information that could potentially lead to identify theft and fraud. This information included names, addresses, length of stay, and credit card numbers. This detective took the precautionary measure of notifying the detectives in the network prior to seeing if this practice was standard in the industry.

As the investigation into this potential fraud risk continued, this information was shared with other members of the Pasadena Police Department and personnel chose to share this information with others before we could correctly evaluate the risk. This has caused a chain reaction of probably thousands of people being given this information before the risk was evaluated thoroughly.

As of today, detectives have contacted several large hotels and computer companies using plastic card key technology and they assure us that personal information, especially credit card information, is not included on their key cards. The one incident referred to appears to be several years old, and with today's newer technology, it would appear that no hotels engage in the practice of storing personal information on key cards. Please share this information with anyone who has a concern over the initial information send out to others as a precautionary measure.

There was never the intent of the Pasadena Police Department to forward this information to others before the risk was evaluated. The information was forwarded by individuals as a possible precautionary note of interest only.

[Bill4728 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Bill4728]

The interesting thing about this is that HOTEL'S DON'T store your info on these cards but some crooks do.

If you are a crook and want to have some fake credit cards/debit cards. It is against the law to have fake credit/debit cards but it isn't against the law to have hotel cards. So crooks transfer stolen credit card data to these cards and then use them to get money from ATM and other kiosk which don't require you to show the card to a person.

[gophish Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close gophish]

Yes, as Steve said "Urban Legends" says this is a hoax that started as a misunderstanding of something a California detective said in an email about that hotels could store all kinds of info on these cards and it got spread around and became on of those misinformation things that they really did. Fact is the hotels only store the room number, the access codes and the check out dates on these card keys.
You can check it out at the url below:

Urban Legends Reference Pages: Hotel Key Card Identity Theft

[I-DE-HO Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close I-DE-HO]

The interesting thing about this is that HOTEL'S DON'T store your info on these cards but some crooks do.

If you are a crook and want to have some fake credit cards/debit cards. It is against the law to have fake credit/debit cards but it isn't against the law to have hotel cards. So crooks transfer stolen credit card data to these cards and then use them to get money from ATM and other kiosk which don't require you to show the card to a person.

Urban Legends Reference Pages: Hotel Key Card Identity Theft I've never seen evidence that your stmt. is actually true, Bill.