People will try anything these days!
Travel Safely and Smart

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 re-issues 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 in to 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!

You can also use a small magnet and pass it across the magnetic strip
several times. Then try it in the door, if it does not work it erases everything on the card.

Information courtesy of: Pasadena Police Department

PLEASE FORWARD to friends and family.

A magnet wil in my luggage for now on!!

This just another urban legend, check the following:

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

Yes urban legend..plus if you still don't feel safe just take the room card with you when you check out and destroy it.