Ever wonder what is on your hotel room magnetic key card?
 

It's a bit long, but worth reading! :2 cents:

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 return them into 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 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!

:thumbsup

thats really good info. thank you.

Source??

God I'm glad you told us that ! Thankfully , I always take mine home just for souvenirs kind of

:thumbsup

phew, didn't know that :Oh crap

I figured it was coke. I guess that's just my experience then.

good heads up ...didnt know that ....

i always keep those things. i have a collection of every hotel i've ever been to.

along with the privacy door hangers.

i think i will destroy all of these now.

It's just an urban rumor... check the snopes link

wow, thanks for the information! i'll definitely keep all of mine from now on..

I don't know who told you that, but its simply not true. There is NO personal or credit card information stored on those cards, and anyone thinking that need to remove their tinfoil hat

dayum....left my Internext Keys on the TV stand...

ProfitX.com the future of Porn is here

yeah thats not true at all

Myth... don't believe anything you read on the net... especially if there's not a reliable source.

http://computerworld.com/securitytop...107701,00.html

Go back and read the rest of the page...

Damn.

I agree SusieQ. I always think they are cool to keep cuz they have the show info on them. :winkwink:

Actually it was forwarded to me via email from a friend (Information courtesy of Pasadena Police Department).

I know I'll never give the key back now. Doesn't matter if it's true or not it's got me paranoid enough to take it with me. Why take a chance?!?

Damn if thats true then thats very unsafe. I'm going to try and read up more on this & see if it indeed is true.

Read the snopes link posted 10 posts up.

You are dumb as FUCK if you belive that. Sorry, but that is my oppinon.
"(Information courtesy of Pasadena Police Department)" im sure.... :1orglaugh

.. doublepost

old and bullshit

I have a large collection of electronic keys. When the thread asked if we knew what was on them .. of course I thought.. GERMS. When I hit a hotel, I wipe down the phones, keycards and light switches.

email has to be the #1 cause of the spread of mis-information

Another urban legend.

This one has been on GFY before.

Good for you! posting false info is always helpful to society. :thumbsup

EDIT: Nevermind...

lol

I'm OCD about hotels... I love going to hotels and I almost always keep the room cards, I've got a nice thick collection going:pimp

sounds like bullshit, there is absolutely no reason no include all that info on the card....

This thread shows that a lot of people don't know how to read.