Hotel Check-in

wsuffa said:
Really bad practice to let them photocopy driver licenses. You are truly at risk of identity theft.

The information on a DL is certainly *NOT* on your credit card mag stripe. ID number, DOB, address, photo - enough to create a very viable fake ID and open credit accounts. SSNs can be had externally given all the other info.

In some non-US countries the law requires that they retain copies of a passport. That I will allow in countires where it's required, even though there is some risk that a fake document will be created.
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I've let them make photocopies of my passport but I've never allowed my passport to be out of my control. If they insist on it I move to the next hotel.
 
MAKG1 said:
Gerhardt, trust me, if you leave something behind at a hotel, it's G O N E.

They will not bother to find you, no matter how much information you leave. If it's crap, they'll throw it away. If it's useful, they'll keep it.
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Not true in my experience. I'm not in a habit of leaving things behind, but I got a call from a Wyndham Inn I'd stayed in saying housekeeping had found a shirt in my room and wanted to know if I wanted it mailed to me. I told them I'd be back in a few weeks and they could hold it for me. Not only was it a shirt but a pair of my underwear.
 
My DL doesn't contain my sock security # . Not as reluctant to show them the license,but never let them photo copy.
 
frfly172 said:
My DL doesn't contain my sock security # . Not as reluctant to show them the license,but never let them photo copy.
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To my mind I see little difference in a photo copy and letting them take possession to manually enter all the data.

I was thinking going in that maybe I was being awkward about it but this thread has confirmed to me that I'm not going to be letting hotels do this in the future. The identity theft cases sealed it...
 
Captain said:
To my mind I see little difference in a photo copy and letting them take possession to manually enter all the data.

I was thinking going in that maybe I was being awkward about it but this thread has confirmed to me that I'm not going to be letting hotels do this in the future. The identity theft cases sealed it...
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Agreed.
 
mtuomi said:
Hopefully soon US follows the rest of the world and starts using chip and pin for credit cards as well...
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+100000000000000000000

I do have one chip card. Funny thing is that after the credit card companies made all the US vendors change their machines to read chip cards, I have yet to find one in the US it work on! They still swipe it. Overseas it reads great on the chip card readers!

BTW try buying something like train tickets overseas with a magstripe only card. More and more of their machines will not read the magnetic stripe.
 
ScottM said:
+100000000000000000000

I do have one chip card. Funny thing is that after the credit card companies made all the US vendors change their machines to read chip cards, I have yet to find one in the US it work on! They still swipe it. Overseas it reads great on the chip card readers!

BTW try buying something like train tickets overseas with a magstripe only card. More and more of their machines will not read the magnetic stripe.
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Yep. I've got 2 chipped cards (chip and signature). None of the US machines with a slot that I've tried will work with the chip.

Automated machines overseas in the countries I've been to don't work with the mag stripe & haven't for some (10+) years. Hotels & shops, generally will (though some restaurants in Paris turn up their nose at mag stripe). About 50% of the automated train machines work fine with the chip & signature card, the others reject it because its not chip & pin. The Marriott (chase) Visa worked perfectly fine without a PIN at the SNCF machine at CDG last month.
 
SkyHog said:
Jesse...no offense, but did you read the attachment you posted? It has the CVV listed as "discretionary data." Also, I forgot that the name was there too.

I remember, when I worked for Autozone, if a credit card would not swipe, you had to type it in and have a manager approve.

I figured out that if you typed it into the computer exactly as it would have been read, it didn't require manager approval and it was processed as a swipe. It was easy to figure out - one day, one of the registers crashed, and was accepting keystrokes but nothing else. So I swiped my own card and it outputted on the screen exactly what it read.

Nifty.
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It was late and I guess I didn't look close enough, lol. I don't deal much in the card-present business right now (all card-not-present currently).
 
Captain said:
This hotel was an off brand hotel with either no rewards program or one I don't use. I do see your point though...the chains with programs I do give my home address to. But at least in that case I'm getting something...points and free stays.




That's a great idea. Didn't think of it and I had my passport right there in my shirt pocket too. Oh well.
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If you're a fan of "Hotel Impossible" you'd know that Mom and Pop establishments have some screwy "rules" . I'm elite with Marriott and I don't think I've ever been asked to have my license number written down (they usually ask for ID if it's an awards stay, but they just skim the picture and name.)
 
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