The other day I mentioned that debt collectors are using social media websites to track down borrowers who are delinquent. Ahhh...the powers of these websites. We may have, however, opened Pandora's box.
Identity theft is a growing problem everywhere. Guess what? Thieves are using these websites as well. They're gleaning information that users have innocently posted on their pages. Personally, I don't want the general public knowing my whereabouts, and for that matter, if anyone is all that interested in the fact I'm going to the grocery store to buy oreos, then quite frankly, they're in a desperate need of a life of their own.
Folks, we're simply putting too much information out there for the public to see: full birthdays, birth places, addresses, and favorite pets, just to mention a few edge-of-your-seat facts we like to post about ourselves. An expert thief can piece together passwords from this simple information. They know what they're doing and they know how to use the information you post, perhaps to even reverse-engineer a social security number. Scary.
Fraud expert John Sileo has a list of the most common mistakes people commit on social websites, such as failing to customize to Facebook privacy settings. Perhaps there are many of these you're doing.
So think before you post. As an example, you post the fact you're going to Guam for three weeks. You come home only to find your house has been robbed. How could that have happened?
What are some of the things you may take off your Facebook page?