For now both for me and ignat liviu(0human) the same thing happened roomkey doesnt work, go down to reception for a new key, come to the room to notice the laptop missing, go back down, in less than 10min go back up, and the laptop has reappeared. We are for sure not the only ones. Tell everyone you know at barcelona arts to not play on their laptops. Ill post a complete story about these sickening last days in a day or two. Just posting this quickly from my ipad to warn everyone.

Wow, kinda redic.

Sick

Absurd, how did it reappear if you had new keys? Did you check the room thoroughly?

posting 4 update n 2 follow

Any new player that has entered those games recently and won substantial amounts should be looked at very closely. That is if you think you were hacked at any point before this.

Hi folks -
Unfortunately, the OP is accurate. We're only aware of two cases, but obviously there could be more. Our security manager is working with the Hotel Arts security people to find out who did this. In the meantime:

• If you're staying at the Hotel Arts in Barcelona, please store your laptop in the room safe. If it won't fit in the room safe, buy a laptop cable lock (available at any computer store) and lock your laptop to something in the room. If you can't do that, take your laptop with you when you leave the room.
• Change the password on your laptop right now.
• We strongly encourage you to run virus/trojan detector software on your computer before using it for any online play.
• I know it's a hassle, but wiping the computer clean and reinstalling everything before you play online poker with it would not be a terrible idea.

We're very sorry about this; everybody on our staff and at the Hotel Arts is taking the situation seriously. We have the Barcelona police involved too.

We'll keep you updated as soon as we know more. For now, please be hyper-vigilant and hyper-careful about your laptop.

Best regards,
Lee Jones

PokerStars Head of Poker Communications

So gross. This perhaps wouldn't even have to be an inside job because if you took any room key to the front desk and said I'm Jens from room xxx and my key isn't working, they'd hand you a new one. But with that being said, how often could this be pulled off undetected?

They should request some kind of ID before doing that, but perhaps things are done differently there. And of course employees sometimes **** up and miss stuff they should do.

OP: do you know if they issued you new keys and deactivated the old ones? Some hotels do this...while others just create copies with the previously-issued ones still functional.

If they actually DE-activated the old ones, then this is some insane inside-job, b/c the perpetrators would have to have somehow cloned the NEW key in order to get into your room while you were getting new ones made. (edit: meh, maybe not if their keys were still active while you guys walked downstairs; regardless unless there's an active cover-up, this will be solved.)

Hotel electronic-key systems should very easily be able to track what keys were issued, when they were used, and exact times. Factor in cameras, etc., and perp's will 100% be tracked down. Please post more Lee and OP as you learn it.

EDIT #2 > OP, were you and 0human0 sharing a room? Or did this happen to you independently in dif rooms?

Camera's in the hotel lobby or hallway?

And how much time between the two robberies? Did you check in recently or had you been staying there for a few days?

this^^

any reasonable hotel should have security cameras, surely you can tell them your story, explain who you are, and what you are alleging...this would be a serious crime in order of thousands of dollars

then again the fact that it could be someone in the hotel...but thats just too crazy

I hope you catch whoever is doing it.

Hate to make a joke. BUT anybody see Josh Tyler around the hotel

I have (not that I travel) security worries about taking my poker laptop to hotels.

a) Are hotels safes any more secure than leaving the laptop in a suitcase? (when thinking about criminals with intent and forethought)

b) Idk much about everything but are internet connections in public places totally secure for playing high stakes on?

i might be missing something but if the intent is only to plant a trojan all you need do is insert a thumb drive and run the program (assuming the laptop was left ON or requires no password to boot up).

Stealing the laptop is unnecessary.

this doesnt even sound like the worst hotel security on the tour. #san reemo

Lee,

Your advice is sound:

"I know it's a hassle, but wiping the computer clean and reinstalling everything before you play online poker with it would not be a terrible idea."

Reformatting before doing anything else is a great idea. However, I know from a similar attempted extortion at a hotel during the Barcelona Affiliates Conference that there is a lack of a readily available, talented, and trustworthy geek squad on the services market in Barcelona.

It might be a nice gesture for your company to offer assistance, even as simple as providing an external hard drive to offload data, to enable folks to re-format and play on. .... If you can ....

Barcelona was already the city of scam artists, but they're taking it to a whole new level right here. Hope everyone has been warned in time and no funds were stolen.

Not to fan the flames, but the intent may have been much broader than to plant a Trojan. The Trojan may have been a "freeroll".

According to a press report out of NY a few years back, a laptop was taken from a guy's hotel room and returned, to enable someone, i.e. the Po - lice, to copy the hard drive contents during the absence. (This was done as part of an online gambling investigation. It was in the press, as I recall, I have no special knowledge.)

Bottom line, if your laptop went missing, you better change everything confidential or private that matters to you, like passwords, accounts (if possible) and also carry on as if someone else has all the data you had stored.

Wow what a disaster. Glad to see Lee is on top of this. If anyone needs help reformatting their computer please feel free to PM me. If there is ANY doubt please take the time to do it. Not at all worth the risk.

Barcelona is a great city; I have undergone an attempted mugging EVERY time I have visited, but one .... one time 10 feet from he door of the Casino, and that one other time I was not attacked/threatened, my laptop was hacked and two of my friends were mugged on Las Ramblas in daylight or roofied in some tourist bar.

Never had a bad meal there however; bought a number of "Escada" purses for like $20 as gifts from some street guys who ran away when the police appeared.

The place is great to visit. Can't wait to go back when I get a chance.

Wow this is pretty sick. Is there any security cameras that would let you know who went in the rooms? Not saying the hotel would let you see it without a police report but not sure how they do things over there.

I'm not an expert but aren't there BIOS viruses that would survive a wipe?

This is really solid advice.

Stories like this just infuriate me. Such degen scum that do these types of things.

I though would think this is more than just a Trojan, because as mentioned above, their is no reason to steal the laptop unless they had motives beyond a trojan.
Hope the resolve to this comes quick and the perpetrator is found and outted quick.