A warning re Hotel swipe key cards

[Chris and Pooh]

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.

Information courtesy of: Metropolitan Police Service.
​

PLEASE FORWARD to friends and family​

 

[tony67]

Most likley false....

http://www.snopes.com/crime/warnings/hotelkey.asp

BTW: It does not hurt to hold onto them and destroy them.

 

[Kathy C]

Most likley false....

http://www.snopes.com/crime/warnings/hotelkey.asp

"Most Likely False" isn't good enough for me. I never turn my cards in on the off chance that it's true! Better safe than sorry!

 

[tony67]

"Most Likely False" isn't good enough for me. I never turn my cards in on the off chance that it's true! Better safe than sorry!

True, that's why I added the BTW to my post just before you posted.
I also added the “Most Likely”, Snopes said it is false FWIW.

I mostly added my 2 cents to relive those that just came back and may be stressed by this.

This also seems to pop up here every few months.

 

[Brian Noble]

100% urban legend.

 

[spiceycat]

depends upon the hotel.

at Disney you definitely need to take them. they are good until midnight of the day you check out for CC purchases.

at other places don't know. Any place that demands your CC would be worried about. (okay use timeshares and pay in advance if you don't then asking for CC might be okay)

 

[racefanof88]

BUT..........your KTTW at Disney can have your CC tied to it. When you book through Disney Travel they ask if you want your CC on file to be linked to your KTTW card. It does have your name, date of arrival and departure, if the card is valid for charging and if you are on the DDP or not. I never link my CC to my KTTW card. If I want to charge something I will use my CC myself.

 

[Maistre Gracey]

BUT..........your KTTW at Disney can have your CC tied to it. When you book through Disney Travel they ask if you want your CC on file to be linked to your KTTW card. It does have your name, date of arrival and departure, if the card is valid for charging and if you are on the DDP or not. I never link my CC to my KTTW card. If I want to charge something I will use my CC myself.

Small point, and not sure if it matters much, but..
Usually a key card just accesses the main computer, and the main computer is where your info is stored. Your info is not stored on the card itself. The same is probably true for park tix and such.

MG

 

[mattincanberra]

Hi guys,

As someone that owns a property that uses mag stripe room cards I thought I would explain how they work.

Usually the room doors are not connected to any computer system whatsoever but are programmed to accept keys created by a particular computer system (there are rarely wires connecting the locks to a computer).

The magstripe on the card holds only a set of instructions about the doors it is allowed to access (that is a activation and deactivation time and the locks it can open). This is an entirely random number.

In a hotel that random number is matched in the property management system (think of it as a great big point of sale system) so it effectively becomes your customer number - swiping your key in the hotel bar for example would bring up your details, not because they are on the card, but rather because they are connected through the PMS system.

More usually in a normal hotel (not disney) they will just ask for your room number and last name when they present you with the bill for services that you want to charge back to your room - because the cost of integrating door cards into every system is reasonably high.

So yes the OP is false. With that said, at Disney you should keep your card becuase it is able to be used to put charges on your room account until midnight, but at a normal Hyatt or Hilton the room card is meaningless after checkout.

Onity (who supply a whole lot of the hotel/accommodation providers) has a demo on their website showing how this all works if you are really concerned, or if you have allways wondered how the card gets you in and out of your room.

Matt

 

[DougK]

As everone else has said this is false, however it is a good idea to destroy your cards anyway since they are good until midnight on your checkout day. While your personal info is NOT on the card, the card can access your personal info if swiped on Disney's system. However if someone found your card say at the mall or something it would do them no good.

I am curious as to why the original poster used giant blue lettering.

 

[tony67]

I am curious as to why the original poster used giant blue lettering.

I assume that when they cut and pasted the email it included the formatting tags.

 

[TotoToo]

Completely false with the possible exception of someone gaining access to a (now empty) room after you have departed. No personal information is stored on any hotel key card. None. Period. End of story. Total urban legend. Don't sweat it.

 

[dioxide45]

I assume that when they cut and pasted the email it included the formatting tags.

No, cutting an pasting wouldn't have provided fomatting tags. Formatting tags in vBulletin is different than just copy and pasting. Perhaps the WYSIWYG editor works differently, but I think you have to add formatting yourself in the post editor manually using the buttons.

We usually take the room key cards with us when we leave anyway. In many cases they are a good souvenier. We may leave the basic ones behind, but have also taken them with us.

 

[deej696]

As a former hotel manager, I will join in and say this is 100% false. In many hotels, the key system is completely independent from the front office operating system. Those key systems that are linked to the OS do not transfer anything other than lock codes between them.

 

[A Mickeyfan]

and the same way the employee can take them to access your info, they can easily access the same info from their computer system.. that is where the key cards are programed from So either way, your info is out there... it is a matter of trusting employees.. same goes for when you eat out and give your card to the server...

whether it is true or false what is stored on your key card.. it is true that your info is stored in their computer system... So if you are going to "worry", think logically......

 

[wmah]

Hi guys,

Usually the room doors are not connected to any computer system whatsoever but are programmed to accept keys created by a particular computer system (there are rarely wires connecting the locks to a computer).

Matt

I know this is false information there. I've locked myself out of the room many times and have had to go the front desk for replacement cards. They reissue new ones to me and they actually tell me to just throw the other ones out as they are disabled. That also means they don't care what you do with the cards.

Their system has to talk to the room door locks somehow to disable the old key cards. May not be wires so there could be wireless communication.

((On edit: I might play with the locks a little and claim I lost my card and try the old card before using the new card to see what happens.))


Old style cards with the punch holes don't talk to a main system.

 

[Brian Noble]

Their system has to talk to the room door locks somehow to disable the old key cards.

But, the mechanism could be the key itself. For example, suppose the initial set of key cards are programmed with valid dates/times (possibly using a bit of symmetric cryptography, with perhaps a key rotation schedule, to make things hard to forge). A replacement key can include instructions on the magstripe invalidating a particular old key (again, with a bit of crypto for authentication).