How Safe Are Hotel Safes?

MSNBC: I don't know about you, but the first thing I do when I check into a hotel is conduct an obligatory spot-check for bedbugs, unpack my belongings and place my passport, extra money and other items of value in the hotel safe, which, by name alone should be the best place to keep my important treasures, right?

Wrong. According to a new video (below) by travel consultant, skyrangerpro, of Skyranger Productions, your hotel safe may not be as, well, safe, as you think it is.

In the video, we're faced with a common, ordinary hotel room safe. The subject demonstrates the proper way to lock it, entering his own generic password of 123456. The safe closes and is supposedly secure now that it is locked. When he enters the password correctly, it opens once again. So far, so good.

He explains how during a recent trip to Ontario, he had forgotten his password and upon asking the hotel staff for assistance, was surprised to find out the safe has a default password set up — just enter all zeros and the safe will open.

The interesting thing is that this trick could potentially work on just about any standard hotel room safe. At the end of the video, the presenter warns travelers to test out the all–zeros default password and come up with alternative hiding spots for your laptops, passports and other important belongings just in case.

Video: