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Seven Joliet, Illinois hotels were hit with search warrants as part of the ever-so-subtly-named “Operation Sleep Over.” The sting yielded 10 arrests of hotel employees and managers. The hotels included a Holiday Inn Express and two Super 8 locations. (The fact that Joliet is perhaps most famous for its prison, as featured in The Blues Brothers, is somehow fitting…)

Hotel workers apparently systematically stole credit numbers and personal information from guests at their properties. They then turned around and sold the data wholesale to identity thieves. Over 10,000 credit card numbers and associated information changed hands, though they were typically sold in lots of 10, at rates between $1,000 and $5,000.

If you were the victim of this operation, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll be contacted by anyone regarding the matter. So you might want to get a copy of your credit report if you stayed in the area in the last six years. In fact, you should just get a copy of your credit report, period. It’s just a good idea to get one, and it’s free, with no catch. I get one every year, and this last time was the very first time in 10 years that there was NOT an error. Errors aren’t always fraudulent in nature, but still, you want to make sure the record is clean.

As for preventing future incidents like this from happening, there’s not much you can do at the local level, unless you’re willing to cut up your credit cards and go all-cash. Until Congress makes it tougher for someone (including you yourself) to obtain “instant” credit without verifying your identity, we’ll continue to hear stories like this.

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