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Thieves Targeting Hotels For Your Credit Card Info

Updated: Wednesday, October 29 2014, 10:53 PM CDT

Hotels are packed full this weekend and that could be good news for crooks looking to steal information.

With the arrival of Formula One, comes thousands of fans.  Most of them will be staying at hotels.  Most of them, just like Barbara Peshka, probably don't know what the hotel does with their credit card number after they check out.

"They delete it," Peshka assumed.  Turns out many hotels keep your entire credit card information stored. And sometimes it's stored on paper.

"That does concern me," Peshka said. It should be concerning after Erin Terry (pictured left) and Robin Secor (pictured right) were arrested.  Round Rock police say they found the duo dumpster diving at an Extended Stay America hotel.  But it's not what the hotel threw out that got the duo thrown in jail.

Police say in their car about 100 names, credit card numbers, and other information of employees and guests.  Police say the women told them they stole the info from hotel storage rooms.

You may think your credit card information being stored on a paper somewhere is illegal.  Bur Christina Tetreault, a Consumers Union staff attorney, says it isn't. 

"There really aren't laws on the books for how they store it and how long they store it down to the detail that consumers are interested in," Tetreault explained. 

Depending on the circumstances the hotel might not be liable for fraud. 

"If these were locked storage areas and the merchant had a reason for maintaining that payment card information it doesn't sound like there's particular liability that would be involved," Tetreault continued.  "The laws require that companies that take consumer information take reasonable care to safeguard it."

The good news in this case is the information is in the hands of police and not the drug dealer it was heading to.

The bad news is we don't know what hotels are storing your information and what's being done to protect it.

We have contacted Extended Stay America about its storage policies but they told us they could not talk about that due to the ongoing investigation.

(Photos from the Williamson County Sheriff's Office.)

By Melanie Lofton

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