oops ~~~~ DID YOU KNOW ~~~ HOTEL KEYS/CARDS

dID YOU KNOW WHAT INFO IS ON YOUR HOTEL KEY/CARD??? I DIDNT, HERE IS THE 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 reissues the card to the next hotel guest. At that time, the new guest's information is electronically "overwritten" on the card and the previous guest'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.

Comments: 15

B.B. B. Oct 2, 2009, 1:05am EDT

I GOT THIS IN MY EMAIL, SO I AM NOT SURE IF THIS IS TRUE, BUT I WANTED TO SHARE THIS ONE....

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Heather C. Oct 2, 2009, 1:13am EDT

I had no idea. Thanks for posting this.

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De (It takes a pillage to raze a village.) M. Oct 2, 2009, 1:17am EDT

OMG! That's good to know. I have thrown mine in the trash before. Sounds like they should be destroyed like an expired credit card...just in case.

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Marilyn M. Oct 2, 2009, 1:41am EDT

I'm not sure about this one. I check Snopes and they said it was false. I don't always believe everything at Snopes, but I do know that just 2 weekends ago, we were in a hotel and if they actually did encode any personal information onto the keycard, it was did not have our credit card info on it. The clerk asked for hubby's credit card for incidentals (the hotel room was already paid for) after we had the keycards in our hand. And, I've been to hotels before and paid cash and, again, the keycards were presented so quickly that they could not have entered any personal info on them.

B.B. B. Oct 2, 2009, 2:18am EDT

thats what i thought first, but when you book your room you usually pay right away ( i do, and i pay online using my cc), so then when they assign you the room and your key, they can just scan it, or however they do it, and your info will be on the key. but i am really not sure.... this one could be true, but it also could not be true.... its just a warning...

Marilyn M. Oct 2, 2009, 3:14am EDT

Go to Snopes and type in hotel key cards. I think they could do this, but why would they? It makes no sense.

B.B. B. Oct 2, 2009, 11:37am EDT

good question, but maybe for their records, they must have lots of those keys, so just so they know which key is assigned to which guest and to which room. we just went to Vegas, i still have my key and there is no info written on there (like room # or anything), its just the card with that little magnetic stripe on the back. if there was no info on that magnetic stripe how would the employee's know which key goes to which room... do you know what i mean? there must be info on there

Marilyn M. Oct 2, 2009, 1:18pm EDT

Yes, they encode the room info on a key. Have you ever lost one? I did one time and it was the only one available. So a guy had to come to my room with a gadget and make/encode one right there. They don't write room numbers on keys where you can see it any more for the protection of guests and the hotel. And hotels can change keys after each guest leaves with key cards.

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