Sending credit card # to hotel through e-mail... Safe?

I split it in half and send two emails. If you're really worried, call them.

Be it email, fax, or telephone there is no 100% secure way of sending credit card numbers; thus the risk is the same. A lot of fraud comes from low-tech methods like stealing mail, rifling through garbage cans, or dishonest employees writing your number on a piece of paper and selling it to a criminal group. I've sent CC detail via email lots of times, and never had a problem. Don't forget you are protected against unauthorized charges.

Thanks, Kathy and Michael, for your comments. I think I will send two separate e-mails to the hotel. Thanks again!

As others have mentioned, I find it no more risky than giving the card to some total stranger in a restaurant and letting him take it somewhere out of sight for several minutes. In fact, if you have a "foreign transaction alert" on you card, as I do on my Cap One Visa, you will know immediately if someone has stolen the number.

It's reassuring to remember that your liability is legally limited to $50 if your credit card is stolen and used fraudulently.

I agree with Kathy and send 2 separate emails with the cc info split. No problems so far ..........fingers crossed!

I'm not really sure what advantage splitting the email into 2 parts is. Perhaps someone can give a reason. But the reality is the highest risk is someone at the hotel either forwarding the email to a thief or writing it down and selling it to a thief. Either way, one email or two, the risk is the same. The risk of an email being somehow intercepted in transit is so remote as to be a non-issue. A fax or phone call poses the same risk level. Having said that, the risk of a hotel employee selling your data is also low.

The internet is insecure, essentially by design. The phone system is secure (aside from government taps). Splitting the emails reduces the possibility of both being intercepted.

Phone systems aren't secure. Any conversation via a cordless or wireless phone can be intercepted using the proper equipment. In addition it quite easy for a bad guy to "hack" into voice mail systems.
That's how the tabloids get the dirt on the British Royal family;)

I still use wired phones....

...but the hotel may be using wireless/cordless phones.

Someplace I read that Marion True, the Getty Museum curator who arranged to steal antiquities from italy, arranged all the deals by fax alone---as the one secure method of communication. (Of course the paper copy is subject to theft, but the fax transmission itself should be secure.) That's what I do for sending credit card ##. Fax.

Fax intercept machine

Most folks have a poor understanding of security related to electronic transmission. There are two conponents to security - what happens at either end and the actual transmission. The least to almost no security is either end. If you number is going to be stolen that is the most likely spot. yet people want to focus on the transmission which is the most secure part. Phone and fax are equal secure/insecure. It is an analog transmission easily tapped into with cheap equipment and thus has a low level of security. The Internet on the other hand has a very high level of security. For all practical purposes an Internet transmission is impossible to intercept so sending cc numbers or anything else important is no a risk. And splitting a number has no benefit.

See, for example, http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/08/revealed-the-in/ and http://www.mpi-sws.org/~francis/sigcomm07-interception.pdf Since not all packets from one end point to another follow the same route through the internet, breaking the data up reduces the chances of the whole number being stolen if one of the intermediate routers has been compromised.

I once bought a Bahn schedule CD and they wanted a card number. I split it in half and two emails. What am I doing wrong (right).? In ten years I have made first time reservations for 33 places in Germany/Austria. I don't think I have ever been asked to secure a reservation with a credit card. Could it be that only one place I've stayed at takes credit cards?

Unlike lee I have stayed at dozens of small places that Have all asked for my credit card info. I used to fax this info (pre email). For at least the past 10 years I have sent this info in one email. The biggest problem I've had recently is the fraud department not approving the transaction because it is being initiated in Europe. So now it seems that in addition to calling your credit card company when you leave, you also may need to let them know when you are making reservations.

I prefer to discover it the hotel has some website with automatic transactions. It reduces - though not eliminates - the risk of handling c.c. number by humans. I'd also become wary if they requested the secure/validation code from the back of the card.