Jaunted

Crime

Hotel Key Cards Mean the Slurpees are Free

March 8, 2006 at 8:39 AM | 0 Comments

At first it made no sense. Why were suspected Vegas hookers and drug addicts often found carrying so many key cards from hotels and casinos? The suspects claimed that they were souvenirs or things they'd just happened to find, but that didn't exactly make sense. It turned out that criminals had got their hands on used-up cards, wiped them clean of whatever data was on them, and then re-coded them with someone's stolen credit-card info. The "credit cards" were then used in places like convenience stores or gas stations for purchases under $20 or so -- small purchases don't set off fraud alarms the way larger bills do. OK, fine, but would it be too much to ask that a credit card actually be embossed with someone's name and not just be printed with a Hilton or Hard Rock logo?

Note that this identity-theft wrinkle is separate from the debunked urban legend that hotel-room key cards are often encoded with personal information about guests.

Related Stories:
·   Street-Level Credit Card Fraud [WaPo, via Digg]