# Why you should always take a small magnet on holiday



## Brit (Aug 14, 2010)

I travel a fair amount on business, so I'm alway staying in hotels. Most hotels these days use plastic card keys to gain access to the room, but do you know what is contained on the magnetic strip of that card key?

1. Customer's name
2. Partial home address
3. Room number
4. Check-in and check-out dates
5. *Customer's credit card number and expiry date*

You are supposed to hand the card key back at the end of your stay, but I never do. Why? Because they don't delete the details from it straight away. They just throw it in a drawer until they pick it out and overwrite it with another customer's details. While your details are still on the card, they can be read by any member of the hotel staff who has access to the reader.

If you want to hand it back in, then you can totally erase your details from it by running a small magnet over the magnetic strip a couple of times. Alternatively, you can take it home with you and use it in the shop like I do. Here are some uses I've found:

1. They make great spreaders for glue or grain filler. You can cut them with a pair of scissors into custom shapes or file the edge to match the profile of a moulding.
2. Shims. Sometimes a card key or two is just the job to stop something wobbling on the workbench.

They can be washed and used again or simply discarded.

*Can you think of any other ways that card keys could be used in the shop?*


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## JJohnston (May 22, 2009)

Do they tack a replacement fee onto your bill?


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## Brit (Aug 14, 2010)

@JJohnston - No, no fee. In fact I've never even been asked for the card key when I check out. Sometimes there is a box that you are meant to drop them in, but I don't.


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## GMman (Apr 11, 2008)

Would that be steeling?
Well they steel you with thier price too LOL.


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## Brit (Aug 14, 2010)

@GMman Technically yes. Do I loose any sleep over it? No.

Although it has never happened, if a hotel did insist I handed the card in, I would insist they deleted my details from it right there and then. Some people might think I'm being a bit paranoid, but you can't be too careful.

Two weeks ago, my credit card company phoned me up to do a random security check. After confirming my identity, they asked me to confirm that I had made three purchases in the last week using my card. Two of the purchases were for about £1500 each and the third was around £700. Neither myself or my wife had used the card in the last 6 months and the cards were still in our possession. I have no idea how they stole my details.

*Don't think it won't happen to you. *


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## rivergirl (Aug 18, 2010)

The hotel I stayed in in Michigan last weekend had cards that read "keep this card- do not return this card after your stay." So perhaps having the customer keep the cards, (thus assuming the liablity of ID theft) will become the industry standard?


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## CharlieM1958 (Nov 7, 2006)

I think most hotels these days do not expect guests to return those cards.

Regardless, though, the fact of the matter is that whenever you use a credit card you run the risk of someone stealing your account number. I know people who are too paranoid to purchase anything online, but think nothing of using their credit card in a restaurant or mall where it is just as easy to have your number ripped off.

In the "good old days" that hotel would have just imprinted your card, and everyone on staff would still have had access to your information.


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## Brit (Aug 14, 2010)

@rivergirl That is an interesting development. I haven't come across that yet.

@CharlieM1958 When I pay for a meal in a restaurant now, I either insist they bring the machine to me or I accompany them to the till. I never let the card out of my sight.


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## CrafterOfWood (Jul 11, 2009)

While I generally keep the key card and use it suggested above (glue spreading, etc.) the notion of personal information being encoded is not correct. See http://www.snopes.com/crime/warnings/hotelkey.asp for more information on this topic.


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## Radu (Jan 25, 2010)

The hotel has your info in the computer anyways. Isn't that the way they transfer it to the key card?


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## Gregn (Mar 26, 2010)

Can't say I travel enough to collect card keys, although I do get those credit card offers in the mail where they send you a card hoping you'll sign up. While I use them for all the things you've described I also use them to make plastic washers instead of buying the nylon washers. I've used them to make hangers for picture frames and other like objects. Bend them in half for finishing stands for small projects I'm spraying. I've even had an occasion to use them for making small parts templates.


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## swirt (Apr 6, 2010)

None of the hotels I stay at in the States want the cards back. They do not reuse them. The stripes are too cheap and fragile. They don't last long enough for repeated use. Card processor agreements will not allow credit card data to be recorded on them. Usually the only data recorded is a reservation id number and a card id number. All the rest of the customer data is stored on the terminal server for the hotel. It serves them no purpose to put all that data on the card and puts them at risk for data security fines if they did.

They also do not put the room number on the card in any form. That would be a personal security risk.


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## Brit (Aug 14, 2010)

@Brad Hancock Thank you for sharing that link. Here's another one you might like to view. http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/10/travel_hotel_keys.html Scroll down and read the text under the heading 'Seeing is Believing'.

I'm no expert on what gets stored and what doesn't. If I am helping to spread misinformation, then I apologise, but will I stop collecting card keys? Absolutely not. a) I don't trust hotels and b) They make great glue spreaders. 

@Gregn Thanks for adding to their uses. Picture frame hangers is a great one, I hadn't thought of that.


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## Abbott (May 10, 2009)

Thanks for the post (s) Brit. Good information. I also liked the way that they approached the Snopes stuff in the article.

Thanks all.


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## Paul2274 (Nov 17, 2009)

I've used mine to to "Jimmy" the door lock when I lock myself out of the house! ;-)

Paul


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## Brit (Aug 14, 2010)

@Paul2274 LOL - Just don't tell anyone where you live!


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## swirt (Apr 6, 2010)

Better safe than sorry is a good motto. That last article is 4 years old…but there may be hotels that did not modify their process or are using some "home brewed and half baked" method despite the new PCI credit card data laws that went into place 2 years back.

Use them for glue without fear of hotel retribution. They really don't want them back. The only reason they put the little receptical on the counter is so they don't have old cards scattered all over the counter.


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## GMman (Apr 11, 2008)

I hate when they reach under the counter to swipe your card.


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## dalec (Oct 3, 2007)

I had heard this from my Brother about a year old. My other Brother did some searching and found the follow link:

http://threatinfo.trendmicro.com/vinfo/hoaxes/hoaxDetails.asp?HName=Hotel+Key+Card+Hoax

What to believe?

Dalec


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## DanLyke (Feb 8, 2007)

I have my own beliefs on this, but if I added my voice to the "It's a hoax" chorus it'd mean nothing, so:

Swipe card readers are available for $25. You could probably pick up one for less off of eBay (there are a couple whose current bid is $.99, though they're $15 for shipping). If you think this is real, it'd be a reasonable thing to see what really is on those cards. In fact I may buy one just to start looking at this.


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## ProbablyLost (Oct 7, 2008)

Brit, Just a FYI….. I used to own several restaurants and all of the credit card info is stored on a computer as soon as your card is swiped. Daily I had axcess to hundreds of CC #'s with the name and exp date. I know that my business was no different than any other, so any place you use your cc has axcess to your info even if you don't let your card out of site. Merchants are even required to keep this info for 6 months to settle charge disputes. If someone wants to steal your info, it will happen. All you can really do is monitor your accounts.


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## Brit (Aug 14, 2010)

Thanks for everyone's input to the discussion. Having read the information at the URL's Brad, Dalec and I posted, I tend to agree that personal details being stored on card keys is the exception rather than the norm.

As has been pointed out, all you can really do is remain vigilant, monitor your accounts and report anything that doesn't seem right immediately.


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## NBeener (Sep 16, 2009)

Count me in on the side of the skeptics, but … better to raise the issue and get to the truth of it than never to hear it in the first place, so-to *Brit*-my sincere thanks.

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


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## TopamaxSurvivor (May 2, 2008)

MY wife got a call one Monday morning from CC company asking if she'd been to BC and Alaska over the weekend and spent $13,000? NO! We'd been home all weekend. No idea how teh number got out??? The reason I do not use debit cards. At least CC have a $50 fraud limit )


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## Brad_Nailor (Jul 26, 2007)

The technology of stealing is getting better and better. You can buy small credit card swiping devices online and some even have there own on board storage so a waiter or waitress can have it in their pocket and swipe your card while they walk to the station to close out your bill. you can also buy online the proximity readers for the cards with embedded chips. With those a person only has to get reasonably close to your card while its in your purse or pocket(like walking by or bumping into you by accident) and it will pick up the info…


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## TopamaxSurvivor (May 2, 2008)

I can't figure out why anybody would carry a proximity CC or any debit card for that matter.


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## Magnum (Feb 5, 2010)

Somewhat the same but different. Went to Lowe's (Canada) bought a Ceramic Sink. They swiped my Visa Credit Card. Then they ask for my Postal Code. I said why do you need that. "So we can get an idea as to where our Customer Base for this Store is Located" . HINT: My Postal Code when put on a "Map Search" will take in at the MOST 4 or 5 other houses on MY STREET including mine.

Google will take you on a VIDEO Tour up and down your street and all the way to your Plotted destinatin when you ask for a "From Here To There" Trip Route. Just click on the Little camera on the right side of the printed "Route Map". You can swing it around, have a look at yours or your neighbours houses. Etc.

Then she asks for my Telephone Number. I said "Why". ANSWER: "It helps us deal with our returns in case you do so." Say What?? HINT: I can look up pretty well anybodys ADDRESS & NAME by using a Reverse Telephone Search on any of 3 or 4 Sites. It very Rarely Fails! Cell Phones are the exception.

I told her I wasn't about to give them my Phone Number. A while back, I did a Reverse Search on MY OWN Phone Number and up it popped My Name & Address, along with "Who are My Neighbours." At leats 80% of the Street I live on came up, Names & Adresses.

When I said "NO!" she had to call a Manager over to approve the Transaction. SHE wanted to get into a discussion about it. I said "LOOK! HD sells this same sink at the same price. Forget the Sale, Credit my CC now and keep your Sink!" She said. ..."Well. Okay. Let it go through." I took it and left.

How much PRIVATE Information do they need?


> How many other Customers give it to them without blinking an eye


 How much OTHER PRIVATE Information do these places keep on file about YOU??? What happens to it? Where does it eventully go?

Next time. if there is one, they get NOTHING except my Credit Card. OR I pay Cash!

ALSO: I was still in the Parking Lot when the guy behind me came over, said he paid cash, they asked him for it all. He heard me Complain and did the same thing. Only he didn't even give them his Postal Code OR his telephone number. They didn't even question him! ERGO: Do they REALLY need it? Are they Entitled to ask for it?

Where does this "Tell Us Your Private Information." Stop!! Of course you could always give them a phoney Postal Code and phone Numer I guess.

Rick

PS: Rare Earth Magnets are Great to keep Specific Allen Wrenches, Chuck Keys, ANY piece of equipments, dedicate adjustment/removal/replace tools atached to the side of that tool. Including Table Saw & Band Saw Wrenches.


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## thiel (May 21, 2009)

Just to add a grain of salt here, that ConsumerAffairs url sure looks like "advertorial" to me-not journalism. The entire site appears to be link-bait, so I'm not sure I'd place much trust in it. (The offer for a $14 iPad at the bottom of their page doesn't exactly scream integrity  The site is aligned with personal injury attorneys, which you can tell from the ads. To my eyes, it appears to be nothing more than a way to sell ads from relatively low end companies.

Snopes has been around a long time, and has been vetted many times over by a variety of trusted sources. Again, if you take the ads as a proxy, you can see that Snopes has just three: from Fidelity, iShares, and Toyota!

I'm not saying ConsumerAffairs is or isn't a trusted source (though, IMO it ain't!) ... I'm just saying that you should CONSIDER the source when you decide whether to trust the information or not.


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