Checking into our hotel in Chicago for our "girls" weekend, my friend Debbie warned, "Don't leave your room key behind when you check out, they keep your credit card information on it."
Before I could express my surprise, my friend Lynne confirmed, " Our friend Denny works in the credit card industry and he told us the same thing."
I was so intrigued that I thought, "wow, I have a great topic for my blog."
Research is a wondrous thing. What I didn't know Friday afternoon is that this room key rumor has been making the rounds since 2003. When I Googled the subject, the first thing that popped up was a post in Computerworld blog just last September with the compelling headline Swipe Here to Steal
"Wallace, IT director at AAA Reading-Berks in Wyomissing, Penn. has been bringing a card reader with him on business trips to see what's on the magnetic strips of his hotel room access cards. To his dismay, a surprising number have contained his name and credit card information - and in unencrypted form.
What’s scary is how easy it is for even a novice to steal this information. He says he bought a $39 card reader at a local retail store and plugged it into his laptop's USB port. Now when he scans a card, the device inputs the data directly into an open Excel or Word document."
Reaction to this post fell into two camps: It's an urban myth. It could be true. Those believing this is an urban cite a snopes.com article. The camp that says don't believe everything you read on snopes.com refer to an online conversation at slashdot
What's a traveling girl supposed to do? At this point, I don't know what I think. I do know one thing though--I can stop feeling guilty every time I find one of these cards weeks later in the bottom of my purse.
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