On a trip to London a few years ago, security consultant Bruce McIndoe had a few hours to kill after checking out of his hotel room. So he left his luggage with the bell captain—something most business travelers do without a second thought.

But McIndoe does think about it now, for when he returned that afternoon, he discovered his bags had been stolen. “They said they were very sorry, but their luggage closet had overflowed and so they threw a few bags out in a hall unattended,” he recalls.

McIndoe knows he has plenty of company: As president of Maryland-based Ijet consultants, which advises corporations on protecting employees and property around the world, he’s heard many tales of theft, petty and otherwise, at some of the world’s better hostelries. Once, he learned that at a five-star resort in the Bahamas, a gang had been stealing items from guests while they lazed by the pool. “The hotel was aware of it and was quietly dealing with it, but yet they did nothing to alert their guests,” he says. “The bottom line is that hotels have little interest in ensuring that their guests don’t get pilfered.”

That’s one reason it’s hard to say just how common hotel crime is—they have little incentive to draw attention to problems, and most local law-enforcement authorities lump such incidents in with general statistics on crime. (More than a decade ago, the Justice Department’s National Crime Victimization Survey found that the rate of crimes against travelers was 127.8 per 1,000 people, versus 213 crimes per 1,000 in the general population.) And unless the loss is substantial, travelers often choose not to pursue their grievance once they’re back home. But anecdotes abound—both about theft and the lack of response from hotels.

Hotels can usually duck legal responsibility for theft on their property, and victims of theft are often met with indifference or even skepticism from managers, especially since guests may be unable to offer hard proof that they were in fact carrying the valuables that are now gone.

When McIndoe examined the fine print on his claim check, he was startled to learn it absolved the hotel—a full-service luxury property—of all responsibility. Although the hotel eventually offered some compensation, he was struck by how little protection consumers have in such circumstances. Now, he says, he always verifies that his suitcase will be in a locked room while it’s out of his sight.

But even cautious travelers may be tripped up. Melanie Graczyk, a loan officer with Access National Mortgage in Roanoke, Virginia, thought she knew all the rules: She’s a frequent traveler, and her husband worked for years in the hotel business. When she stayed in the brand-new Hilton Garden Inn in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, last year, she was surprised to find that there were no safes in the room, so she hid $600 in cash in her drawer. During her stay, workmen entered her room to fix a broken air conditioner. Soon after that, she noticed the money was gone. She immediately reported the loss to the front desk. “They told me I could walk to the police station and file a report,” she said. “The reactions I got ranged from total indifference to almost accusatory.” She followed up with letters and emails and finally heard from an insurance-company representative who said that under New Hampshire law, the hotel was not liable. (A manager at the property told Portfolio.com that the security was “very good,” and she felt that the incident had been handled appropriately. In addition, the hotel states on its registration form that safety deposit boxes are at the front desk.)