Quite a few years ago I checked in to a downtown hotel in Chicago. I was meeting someone for dinner soon after checking in and was going to go up, change clothes and head back down to dinner. The lobby area was very small and from the Front Desk you could easily see everyone who was coming and going. Sooooooo,
When I checked in the girl at the front asked me the usual, "How many keys?" to which I replied, "1". She scanned one key and then said something to the effect of, "Oh that didn't work. Let me do another." I didn't think anything of it. Went upstairs, changed, went to dinner. When I returned my laptop was gone and some other things from my room. I called the Front Desk to report that I was robbed, Security came up, blah blah blah. They changed my room, moved my stuff to a new room and continued to ask me questions, "Did you close the door all the way? Are you sure?" THEN......
One of the security guys came back up and told us all that someone using MY KEY had entered the room while I was at dinner. Thats when I asked why we hadn't called the Chicago Police yet. The hotel went round and round about who it might have been after i proved that I wasn't even in the hotel at that time and only had the ONE KEY they made for me. They determined that it wasn't a maid or other staff member because their keys show a specific electronic signature when they enter a room. The key that opened my door was MY KEY they told me. And then it HIT ME...... the girl at the Front Desk made that second key which "didn't work".
It turns out certain members of the staff had been scamming hotel guests for some time with this little game and the hotel hadn't figured it out until I put it all together for them. They would watch people checking in with laptop bags, make an extra key, wait for them to leave and then have someone head up to the room with the guest's "second" key. The hotel chain paid me for the value of the items stolen and assured me that the issue was taken care of, but couldn't tell me exactly what was done since it involved their HR department.