Facebook Status Update Leads to Robbery

When you are ‘friends’ with people on Facebook that you are not actually friends with, how do you know whether they have good intentions?

A recent segment on CNN discusses the risks that you may be taking while updating your Facebook status. You don’t know who is looking at your private information because it’s really not private – it’s public. Keri McMullen found this out the hard way after she posted a simple status message that she was going to see a band with her fiance. It only took the burglars calling the venue to find out what time the show was starting to know when they could break into her home. The burglars showed up 35 minutes after the McMullens left for the concert.

It is that simple. You post a casual message to your “friends” that could turn into a nightmare where, like Keri, you lose upwards of $11,000 in personal property. They were lucky that they had cameras installed in the home and were able to catch the perpetrators on film. After posting pictures of them on her Facebook page (a good use of social networking), another friend recognized the intruders as Keri’s high school classmate.

This story shows Facebook users that although you may have know this individual at one time, if you do not interact with them and know their character now, then how can you trust them? Remember you don’t have to be friends with everyone you have ever spoken to on Facebook. By keeping your ‘friends’ limited, you are lessening your risk of becoming a victim. No matter what privacy setting you have on your Facebook profile, your posts are public, permanent and exploitable.

Learn more on Facebook safety and child online safety through our Facebook Safety Survival Guide.