Hotel Key Cards
By littlenita
@littlenita (144)
United States
February 17, 2007 5:42pm CST
When you check into a hotel and you're given a key card to open the door of your room, do you know that YOUR personal information has been scanned into the key card?
I've been told that key cards has information such as:
your name, your partial home address, your check in & out dates and YOUR CREDIT CARD number and expiration date! I've been told that when you check out of the hotel and you give the key card back to the front staff, your personal information is still on the card until a hotel employee
re-scans the key card for the new hotel guess, at that point "YOUR" personal information has been overriden with the new hotel guess personal information. I've been advised, when checking out of a hotel..do not return the key card, take it home and cut it up. I was advised that the hotel can not charge you for the key card.
Has anyone heard of this? Do you think it's true?
3 responses
@crazynurse (7482)
• United States
18 Feb 07
Oh my gosh! You are kidding? I am so glad that you told me this. I am sitting here remembering the last time we checked out of a motel. The front desk was quite busy and we laid the card on the desk and made sure that the person saw it and just walked away. The employee was quite busy on the computer and who knows how long that card laid there? Thank you for posting this! I know what to do from now on!
1 person likes this
@littlenita (144)
• United States
18 Feb 07
You're welcome. I'm not 100% sure about the key card it's just what I've heard. I really wished more people would have responded to this discussion because I like you really want to know if it's true or not.
I wish the people that worked in hotels/motels would have responded because they could truly tell me if our "personal" information was on the card, but I only received 2 replies!
1 person likes this
@inked4life (4224)
• United States
17 Feb 07
WOW!! I have never heard of this and if it's true it's more than a little scary. Thankfully we always use the express check-out on the hotel room tv and usually end up bringing the key home with us and tossing it.
1 person likes this
@littlenita (144)
• United States
18 Feb 07
You're doing the right and I think my husband and I will start doing this too.
1 person likes this
@FloatingGum (346)
• United States
21 Feb 07
That is not true.
I work at a hotel. The only thing our keys are coded with are the check in and check out dates and room number. Those correspond with what is programmed into the door. Also, once a newly-coded key is used in a door any previous codes won't work. So whoever had your room the night before can't use it to get in.
The only time I can see this *maybe* being different is when a property allows room charges. Even then, I think the information is coded so it links back to the computer to check that you haven't reached your limit. There is no actual credit information coded onto those cards.
