Facebook Crooks

By drodriguez Aug 10, 2010

With social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook we can all be clued in to what our loved ones are doing at any time of day or night. Whether it be something as mundane as a visit to the grocery store or as exciting as the birth of a new baby, we can follow our friends and families lives like never before. But what if we’re not the only ones keeping track of our friends?

A new website called PleaseRobMe has drawn a lot of attention to sites like Twitter and Facebook and questions how safe it is for people to share such private information for the world to see. And after an Indiana woman was recently robbed by a Facebook “friend” prior to updating her status to say she was away on vacation, it is no wonder this has become an issue.

PleaseRobMe was created as a way to draw attention to the subject and show the public just how easy it would be for house thieves to find out when someone will be away on vacation by simply reading a status that might say something like, “Can’t wait to leave for our two-week-long vacation this Friday!” and rob their house.

Though they are no longer displaying this type of information, PleaseRobMe was posting information that they easily retrieved from Twitter and Facebook users who were away from their homes and put it up on their website as a way to display “opportunities” for thieves to rob homes. Though the site was meant to send a satirical message about how what was once private information has become incredibly public, some people are taking it a little more seriously and are not happy with the information the site was displaying.

What do you think of the message PleaseRobMe is sending?

Will you be more careful the next time you update your Facebook or Twitter status?