Checking the veracity of that e-mail
You got that e-mail from your cousin warning that hotel key cards contain personal data that can be stolen in a new form of identity theft and you don't know whether to delete it or believe it.
How can you check it out?
If you're like most of us trying to get more done each day with fewer people to help, you would appreciate an easy way to separate fact from fiction. Sure, you can try to Google the information or type in a question to your favorite search engine.
But you can also speed your search by checking www.snopes.com — which specializes in researching urban legends.
That's often a great source. On the hotel key card identity theft rumor, the urban legends hunters traced the rumor back to a Pasadena, Calif., detective who misinterpreted the statement that personal information "could" be placed on a key card.
The erroneous e-mail went on to incorrectly say those hotel key cards routinely are encoded with: Customers' names, partial home address, hotel room number, check-in date and check out date, credit card number and expiration date!
The much forwarded e-mail warns people that an unscrupulous employee can take the cards home by the handful, scan your information into their laptop and go shopping on your credit card.
The Snopes folks found that keycards are not routinely encoded with personal information that can be easily harvested by thieves.
"As of today, detectives have contacted several large hotels and computer companies using plastic card key technology and they assure us that personal information, especially credit card information, is not included on their key cards," according to Snopes. The one incident referred to appears to be several years old (2003) although the e-mail goes around every now and then and generates a new wave of paranoia.
It turns out that hotels generally have no practical or functional reason for wanting to encode customers' personal information on their room key cards. As Snopes points out, most of them have databases that store the very same customer data, so they have no reason to encode anything more than basic information (e.g., room number, access code, activation and expiration dates) on the key cards themselves.
They did conclude that anyone who is worried about what is on the cards can just keep them and destroy them when they get home.
Another good Web site that offers debunking is www.truthorfiction.com which describes itself as an E-mail Reality Check site where you can "get the truth about rumors, inspirational stories, virus warnings, hoaxes, scams, humorous tales, pleas for help, urban legends, prayer requests, calls to action, and other forwarded emails."
The truthorfiction site also runs a list of the top 20 stories that people have searched for recently. Yesterday's list included these:
Both of these sites warn of various forms of e-mails that threaten harm to those who don't forward them.
www.Truthorfiction.com debunked the eRumor like this: This e-mail, said to be popular among young people, says you need to forward it to 15 people within fifteen minutes or you will die. It claims that the creator of the e-mail has a program that will track everyone who did or did not send it and track down your address. It also claims that five people have died by not sending it.
The Truth: It's a hoax that had one of the longest lists of accumulated e-mail addresses the researcher had seen — 3,180 of them. Like other "e-mail this or die" messages, it presents no evidence of what it claims. Most importantly, there isn't any method by which the originator could track every forwarded e-mail, document those who did not forward it, and detect their addresses.
