How Your Hotel Key Cards Work

This post is not really anything special. It's a peeve of mine that I've had for as long as I've worked in the hotel business. I deal with it at least twice a month now, and I consider that a lot since I only work on average 12 days a month.

The problem::

"All my personal information is on my key card"

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I am writing this post to inform you that this is 100% completely and utterly false. As previously stated, I have worked in hotels for 4 years now. That gives me a bit of experience with the situation, wouldn't you think? 

Apparently not. According to the woman that just stormed out of my lobby, I know nothing about what I'm talking about. She's been in her business and travelling for years and has never left her key behind because of that exact fact. I explained to her that it could be possible that some of the HIGH end hotels would put some sort of information on the keys to put a note in that the person needed to be charged for something, IE if a hotel were to use their keys for vending machines or access to certain "exclusive" features the hotel offers, but never the customers actual information. She then told me that I needed to quit lying to her face and I needed to keep my mouth shut unless I know anything and stormed out, throwing her key at me. 

She could have taken the key. I don't care. It would cost a fraction of a penny to replace. What gets me is the simple fact that most people never believe the person that works AT the hotel, but their friend who heard from a friend that they had a friend whose identity was stolen because of a hotel card. 

Still think I'm lying about it? Ok, that's fine. You want facts. Snopes.com has reported that this rumor started back in 2003 when a detective in California overheard a conversation between an investigator and another fraud detective and it was mentioned that it could be possible to put this sort of information on a hotel key card. This detective then went around telling other detectives about the situation, trying to give them a "heads up" and well, I'm sure you are all familiar with the children's game "Telephone". I really think that's what happened. There were emails sent out about it, I don't know the origins. Not good enough? Here's another link from computerworld.com with a 4 page article on the topic. 

Here's how the hotel keys really work. They used to be actual keys, with the number engraved on them. As you can imagine, that became expensive to replace when people lost them. Don't feel bad, it happens. It also posed more of a security risk because if you lose your key with your room number printed on it, whoever finds the key could get into your room. Scary, huh?

So hotels looked for a solution to that problem, and went electronic. They key card has a magnetic strip that can be programmed for a certain room for any number of days and deactivates at a certain time. That time in my hotel is noon. I suppose it could be different for other hotels, but I don't know for sure. The lock on the door is battery powered and encoded with the same code we put on your card. That's how you get into your room. 

The machine with your information on it (the main computer) and the machine that programs the key card are COMPLETELY different machines, about 4 feet apart on the desk, not connected in any way. Unless you count the surge protector they're both plugged in to. 

Hopefully I have made my point. I know there are many places out there that this information can be found, but it seriously annoys me when people don't bother to go looking for it and just believe everything they have heard. It slightly more than pisses me off when you stand in front of me and call me a liar because I tell you something that goes against what you have decided to blindly believe without putting any thought into finding the truth on your own. I suppose all I can do is put the information out there and hope that people find it. 

**While I'm on this "truth finding mission" I decided to add something that is probably even more important that people know is false.. The reverse PIN panic code to be used at an ATM in case you are being forced to pull money out of your account. Putting in your PIN number backwards truly does NOT inform the police of a problem at the ATM. Currently, this type of programming doesn't even exist, however it is a good idea. 

Until next time~~