urban myth?
 

[/align][align=center] IS THIS INFO ON THE CARD OR JUST GIVE ACCESS TO THE HOTEL COMPUTOR?[/align][align=center][/align][align=center]URBAN MYTH?
[/align][align=center][/align][align=center][/align][align=center][/align][align=center][/align][align=center][/align][align=center][/align][align=center][/align][align=left]Ever wonder what is on your magnetic key card? Answer:
[/align][blockquote]
[/align][blockquote]
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
therefore 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 reissues the card to the next hotel guest. At that time, the
new guest's information is elec tronically "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, esp ecially through the electronic
information strip!

Information courtesy of: Pasadena Police Department.[/blockquote][/blockquote]
[/align]

RE: urban myth?
 

All good advice and should be well known by the public. I've unfortunately had to spend a large portion of my life in Hotel rooms but haven't experianced the problem because my card expenses were always on my Companies bill. However when the card keys first started being universally used we all did get a warning about this to watch for on personal travel.
I still like the the1/2 pound brass keys used in 100 year old hotels in Europe. If you can still carry it back to the hotel you haven't drunk "too much wine."

RE: urban myth?
 

I, too, spent quite a bit of time living in hotel rooms for work, also paying with company info, but I always keep the credit card style keys. Just in case.;)

RE: urban myth?
 

you 2 guys weren't pimps were you?

RE: urban myth?
 

i was an auditor.

urban myth? NO
 

not only is that NOT a myth but it gets better.

years back when i was living in the AA 757's, coast to coast,
and at the Hilton's in between (no, i never met the heiress) flights,
there was a big fire in Vegas. some people died because they exited
the rooms and found matters worse in the hallway, BUT
since they had left the room key behind, couldnt go back.

after that, we had training to survive hotel fires and a few things
were brought up as absolutally a must to survive:
- never, NEVER , NEVER leave your room w/o the key,
if you may find matters worse, you may need to re-enter your room,
- when you arrive at a hotel, count the doors to the fire escape,
very hard to find in the confussion and smoke,
- have a mini flashlight to find your way around, dahhh,
- if you leave your room in a fire, take a wet towel with you
to be used as a breathing filter - not great, but better than nothing.

oh .. also, in the 757's / 767's, sit by the wing (and exit door) in the airplane
in case zinizn decided to ditch the plane. it is also the seat with the large stretch
your legs space.

LIVE LONG AND Prosper ...






.

RE: urban myth?
 

No offense, the pimp thing was a bad attempt at humor,in any case I do some business with a company in S Florida called audit 1. He does some hotels in broward and dade, including a big one in coconut grove.

RE: urban myth?
 

GARY

I certainly do not want to offend anyone either but I think you insulted the pimp!
With all due respect to all you moderator/administrator gods I believe I saw this poll on respected professions.

1 Clergyman
8. Doctor
12. Pilot
73 Check cashing services
82.Liquor salesman
89. Real Estate Broker
93. Used car salesman
99. Pimp
100 Auditor.

RE: urban myth?
 

Let's check Webster's Unabridged:

Auditor : Financial personnel who comes in after the battle is done and Bayonet's the survivors.

This after many years of working in GM Financial and dealing with internal auditors, Corporate auditors and then Independent auditors. All asking the same set of questions with that look that says "you are a crook and I'm going to catch you!".

RE: urban myth?
 

having been a MTS under consultation to DOD/USAF-Missile Office ,
i did my share of "put their feet to the coals and see what falls out" ..
it never failed, something always fell out. funny this comes up, most
of what i did was in zinzin's back yard having flown into Logan more
times thani can or want to remember.

none cuz they were crooks but cuz often they (contrators) didnt buy
into the letter of the contract themselves - a contract that often was
put in place by suits that knew little about the workings of the shops.
if there was a underlined issue,i could spot an attitude in 30 seconds
and that's where and when the digging began.

i re-negotiated plenty to the advantage of BOTH sides, always with
a win-win attitude - i met a lot of good people on both sides.
oh .. pimp (among other terms) was something that was often trown
at me by angry contractor employees. i never let it get to me.

i always said that my goal was to save DOD my annual salary
on each trip i made. since i got paid two cents, that was easy.

BTW, have you met?
pimp_cadi_danny





.

RE: urban myth?
 

i was an independant auditor, but i wasnt doing the type of auditing that you guys are discussing.

public schools in the states of PA, OH, NY, WV, and KY (that i know of) require public schools to have a full record of their assets, with values. In some cases, we would get a list of assets from the school (or police station, or fire dept..any publically funded entity) and we would go through and verify that they have what they claim to have, or in some cases, we had to go from scratch.

the use of these audit is for funding purposes, so that the local and state govt can decide if a district has too much money, or not enough money. it is also intended to show that they are appropriating funds correctly.

it was a TERRIBLY boring job, and although the pay was good, the travel was not. The company wanted to make sure that we wouldnt enjoy ourselves on these trips, so they paired up people from the company didnt get along, and made us share a company car AND share a room...adult men, who barely know each other, sharing a room.

on top of that, my dad got sick, and i quit and moved home, getting a job in the area to help out with the bills at home.

RE: urban myth?
 

Patrick,

what you described is no fun, no matter the company.

my rule was simple:
dont change what i do at home and we will do fine,
change it and we are done.

we got along just fine.



======

RE: urban myth?
 

So if I'm 73 and 82 (don't know what's between them) I rank higherthen the common 89 dime a dozen real estate brokers. However it seems to me that Pimp would also rank higher then the current 89. and that actually 93 should be tied with 89? Am I reading the poll correctly?

RE: urban myth?
 

read it any way you want 'cause it's a figment of my imagination. yeh I even ranked you higher than me and what do I get --personally degraded and attacked. By a moderator my less. No wonder Odell won't come out to play!

from another post, pics of the bike when appropriate.

RE: urban myth?
 

you forgot to include lawyers, moderators, and judges.