Hotel room key cards

[alan@marple]

Thanks for that Howard, phew, what a relief!

[Howard]

Ever wonder what is on your magnetic key card?

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!

Fortunately this is complete rubbish, even though it sounds convincing. Hotels have no incentive whatsoever to put this data on a card. In most cases the card machine is not even connected to the hotel database, they just put in card, enter the room number and write it to the card. Nothing else. You can check the origin of this story at:
http://www.snopes.com/crime/warnings/hotelkey.asp

[alison]

Did a quick internet search and it seems that this rumour has been floating round for a while, with little basis in truth. Many links about it including this one

http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/k/keycards.htm

Hope this helps

Alison

[alison]

Not sure that's 100% true - most of that data will be held on the hotel's database with some kind of identifier linking the information in the database to the card. The same as all that data is not held on the mag stripe on a credit card. Would be interested to hear what someone in the hotel industry thinks.

Don't think its a problem for me, most times I stay in a hotel I manage to wipe the  card before I have even let myself in my door necessitating multiple trips to reception!

Alison

[alan@marple]

 

 


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Subject: Fw: Very Important - KEY CARDS

 I received the following in a round robin email, I dont know the author, but it makes interesting reading.

 

 Something to think about!!

 This is pretty good info. Never even thought about key cards containing anything other than an access code for the room!   

HOTEL KEY CARDS

Ever wonder what is on your magnetic key card?

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.

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!

If you have a small magnet, pass it across the magnetic strip several times. Then try it in the door, it will not work. It erases everything on the card.





 

 
 

 


 





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