Hella interesting read and thx for posting OP.

Barcelona is the worst (or has been) for petty theft (not racist just the truth). Apparently criminals have moved on to worse things. Just one more thing to watch out for.

Remarks made on 2p2 could only be considered slanderous if the persons making them know their statements to be untrue. I think that is hardly the case here.

Actually, he's right. And it's ridiculously unfair to lay it on about PS and particularly about L. Jones when for all you know they're simply trying to get their facts straight before they make further statements. Idle speculation costs us nothing, but it could cost them a lot.

has there been 1 post from an actual lawyer here??

Really bad situation on so many levels. I hope it all gets resolved as quickly as possible.

As for the cameras, when they told you that those 8 weren't working I would have gone up to your floor and damaged something like a light fixture outside your door. If they confront you about it then you know they were lying about the cameras.

Actually,
a. Remarks made on 2p2 would be libel, not slander and
b. they would just have to be false in many jurisdictions. You wouldn't need to know they're false.

Regardless of how upsetting this situation is, it would be best to wait until the facts are known.

I think I understand the key logs now going with the theory that you can only have 2 keys active at once / room. I guess once the new key is created which ever of the first 2 keys is older becomes deactivated.

So you and your roommate start with your 2 keys.

13:32 the intruder has already made a copy of the key at this point which resulted in your roommates key being deactivated as shown in the series of failed attempts
13:55 - your roommate returns after 2 and a half min (prob around 2-4 min is average time it takes to go get a new key from the front desk and back)

13:56 - maid comes in to do a cleaning?

14:51- i dont know how long the maid was but there could be a chance that the villain here is entering shortly after the maid comes which seems like a smart idea as you're most likely not in the room at the time

14:52-because your roomate got a new key the key suspect has might have lost charge and once again you see the failed attempts. Kind of confusing because if he lost his charge that means he had his key before you?

14:54 looks like once maid arrives so he leaves

15:15- once again comes back shortly after maid which makes me think he maybe had a room close / was hanging around the area

15:19- tries a couple more times with the key then once again you see that 3 min gap where he goes to get the key resynced.

15:40- 20 min later u arrive and since your roomate and the intruder were the last 2 people to sync the keys yours is now deactivated.

15:42Not sure about the minibar service they came randomly around that time just to restock ours aswell. but very suspicious as its right when you go to the desk

15:46- you return after the standard short gap to the desk

And the rest is as you explained. Also the last part is quite creepy indeed since your roomate at the time, had the oldest key which leaves you and the intruder both had the 2 most recent/active keys and were literally two minutes away from a confrontation.

It's pretty safe to say that I think he takes the laptops to a different room to install the Trojans on it an then returns it after.

I have a couple questions. You probably already checked but is it possible that there was another name under your guys' room which could explain why they first blamed your roomate? I think we had 3 names on ours.

Was this day the first time you guys had issues with your keys? Because the order in which keys got deactivated went:
Roomate
Suspect
You
So the roomate is first to get a new key which then seems to deactivate the suspects key as he is the next to attempt an unlock. Which means that he had his key synced before you which would be a bit confusing if you had no problems before. Or he just got confused and was using a key that was originally for a diff room..

Also should note that I find it really strange his attempts aren't just one after another he waits 8-16 second gaps between attempts. I wonder if its possible for him to have his own device to sync keys... If he's computer savvy enough to install intricate viruses I would t put it past him. Also after seeing these giant holes in security wouldn't surprise me if they didnt put that much effort in to key copy protection.

Also do staff members ever get keys synced? It seems strange for a staff member to get a key for a specific room. Or is it just the maids and mini bar people who have master keys?
If they do you could inquire to see which receptionists were working and see if any staff requested keys.

Overall I think the key system at most hotels is really weak security and is pretty open for crime.

Maybee a stupid question, but what would happen if when you and roomate were trying your room keys, the guys were jnside the room and just locked the door with the deadbolt from inside, then you go downstairs to get a new key and they leave knowing you will be back soon. If this was the case, would it appear that the key wasn't working, or would you be able to tell the key works and the door was deadbolted.

I've never been in a hotel where you couldn't tell the difference between a deadbolt v a key not working...

I don't think any maid ever at any hotel has said anything when I've walked into my room during cleaning. I don't think hotels will do anything about it either. The vast majority of times the person entering the room is legit. A lot of the time the maid and the customer don't share a common language. A bit too often the maid is totally socially inept and if you required that she asks the person walking in to identify himself, this would only lead to the maid screaming at the customer in a rambling fashion in a language the customer doesn't understand. Then the hotel gets a lot more negative reviews than they would get if someone every now and then exploited this security leak to walk in and steal stuff.

As someone said earlier in the thread, treat hotel room security level as "anyone can walk in at any time" and decide what stuff to leave there based on that. As unfortunate as it is, that's the best way to keep your stuff safe.

I do not understand why on earth you guys are dealing with hotel security. Your rooms have been broken into. Your laptops have been stolen and tampered with. You are receiving disturbing phone calls from people who may be in on the crimes. This is a situation for the police, not the hotel security.

I do not understand why you think that hotel security or a Stars rep are the right people to report these crimes to. This story does not make very much sense.

Edit: Read deeper into the thread and see that the police are now involved, so good news! It would have been nice to get them in immediately though.

They may not end up being the "right" people, but it's not unreasonable that they would be among the first in this spot. If you saw a shady character at an airport terminal, is your immediate call to airport security? Or directly to the CIA? He probably started by consulting with those two authorities, having little reason -- at the time, anyway -- to suspect a need for escalation.

To Jens, I know it's still early in this saga (although it probably feels like an eternity for you) but any updates on the condition of your computer? Malware, Trojans, keyloggers, etc.? It may seem like a secondary concern right now, but it might shed some light on who is behind this.

Either way, good luck to you.

Hi Jeans,
I read your case and I am shocked about the Arts, love that place and the service has always been unforgettable. Now I will not trust any hotel again.

I live in Barcelona and have few local connections with the Police (a friend's husband works as a detective), few lawyers and other connected locals that could possibly help.
Let me know if there is any way I can help from the "ground zero".

You have to get to the bottom of this, do not let them wear you out.
Cheers!

Apparently some Spanish fellow with over 70k followers retweeted the story. Can someone here provide more info who he is/ how influential is he?

hmmm ‏@javimoya 38m
@RealJeans89 hi! I'm from Spain. Your story is now very popular here (appeared in ‘meneame’ -our extremely popular reddit-)


(Yeah I know this is other tweet not the RT)

100% inaccurate.

Even at a Motel 6 they will not let you enter while the room is being cleaned, and if you must enter the maid (unless she recognizes you and they should even then) will have you put your key in the door to show you are legit.

It's nonsense that maids just let anyone walk in.

If you've truly had this experience several times you are on the extreme edge of the standard deviation of having incompetent maids/hotel administration.

I've done years of hotel living and what you state as the norm is wildly inaccurate.


"The vast majority of times the person entering the room is legit."

Please link to any proof of this. You've obviously pulled that statement out of your *ss.
You have no idea what you are talking about in this post, and are simply making things up based on some incorrect assumptions.

As far as the key systems go, the person making the new key has a choice - to make the new key with the same code as the older keys, so that they all work, or to make the new key with a new code, so that the old keys no longer work.
It's also possible to make more than 2 keys per room.

The only reason any of the above would be different would be if there was a strict hotel policy in place where the clerks have been instructed to always use a new code when rekeying, and perhaps a rule to not make more than 2 keys per room even if requested , but I can't imagine such a rule ever anywhere.

At this hotel apparently the norm is to make new keys with a new code.
However, this is surprising as it's incompetent - the desk clerk should ask you how many keys you want. And especially if one's room has more than one person registered for it, and they are recoding the new key, they are obviously locking out the person with the 2nd original key.

I've been to plenty 5 stars and the maids have never asked for any ID/room key. I guess it's luxury etiquette, they don't want to bother their well paying guests and, in the case of a 5 star, it's all of them.

What babaloo said. At a motel 6 they expect every customer to be some shady scum and treat them as such. At a 5 star hotel they don't want to bother their customers.

I've had them ask. It's about 50/50 on the rare 20 or so occasions when I returned to find housekeeping in my room.
I prefer tight security but wouldn't put some poor maid on the spot by reporting it. Besides, i don't leave anything I can't afford to lose in my room.

Public attack on the hotel is totally fine since all this happened there. Even if their security personnel had been doing everything they can to solve this (They didn't. Not even close), writing a report to tripadvisor (and other similar sites) is absolutelly justifiable. Telling what happened and sharing your experiences is why we have those sites.

The last point you make, so what you say is that it's not OK to write negative reports since court will collect money from you due to damage your review cost them? Dude, come back from wherever you're living. 0% chance that will happen.

OK this is just stupid that I even have to write this, but:

If Jeans is to write a report about his trip to Arts and explains exactly what happened truthfully, then what is the problem? It's not false review, there is nothing the hotel can do. And even the case you are talking about was dismissed. If negative reviews are not allowed, then what the f*ck is the point of these sites? It doesnt matter who is responsible, it all happened in hotel Arts, and that's where the trip report should go. Jeez dude, get a grip.

How is the second part relevant to this story? The part where bartender got fired?

There's nothing wrong with Jeans posting a review of his experience. Same goes for anyone else who actually experienced something.

you must know my posts referred to a proposed unified effort for NVGers to slam the hotel...

Because Unix based systems are uncrackable.

I was in Barcelona, and 2 or 3 times I entered my room while maid was in. Even worse, once, my key wasnt working, I heard some noise inside so I nocked on my door and a maid I never seen before let me in without even asking for ID or anything.

Everyone going onto tripadvisor and writing reviews will certainly have a big impact. The only downside is that everyone writing these 1 star reviews have new accounts so the impact won't quite be as good as hoped. Saying that, the helpful reviews tick box has been hammered so it's hard to ignore that. I've made a lot of reviews on tripadvisor but I'm going to resist making my own review as I did not visit EPT Barcelona. I'm sure once this unfolds, damage will be done to the perpetrator.

In my opinion a poker player has teamed up with a highly skilled hacker and this has been planned a long time ago and/or has been going on for some time.

I think peoples reactions towards the hotel are unfair. Of course the hotel have treated this scenario in just about the worst way imaginable but I highly doubt they realised the sheer magnitude of what had happened. Obviously it doesn't look good when it seemed the hotel were trying to cover things up but to me, it seems crazy that such a reputable 5 star hotel that has such good business would jeopardise itself like this. This being said, it wouldn't stop a few hotel employees being in on this but that seems far too elaborate and would have been exposed by now.

Excited to see how this unfolds.