This post is by Suba at Wealth Informatics: debt reduction, financial planning, informed Consumerism, savvy investing, fun & frugal living leading to financial freedom.
I am not talking about Facebook costing you via all the lost productivity that you could have used to make money or time spent with your family. I am talking about Facebook directly costing you money, real hard earned money.
1. Spending Real Money to Buy Imaginary Farms
I used to play Farmville. After two weeks it got boring. How long can you sit and watch the crops grow? But people not only spend time on this game, they spend real money. Farmville, Petville, Cityville, Mafiawars… there is a whole array of virtual worlds waiting for your money. To highlight this, the parent company of most of these games is Zynga. Zynga’s monthly revenue is currently estimated at over $50 million per month. If it has a fairly standard margin of 30%, that means its pocketing over $15 million per month! Where does this money come from? Facebook users. Furthermore, Zynga accounts for 31% of all app usage on Facebook. Its nearest competitor is Facebook itself, which only accounts for 14% of usage.
2. Employment Opportunities
A 2009 report shows that 45% of the employers use social media to research their prospective employees. And they are finding a gold mine of information too. 90% of social media users didn’t bother to check the employer’s privacy policy before applying for jobs. Furthermore, most Facebook users don’t change the privacy settings of their pages to prevent outsiders from seeing their information. Here are some statistics from the study.
- Candidate posted provocative or inappropriate photographs or information – 53 percent
- Candidate posted content about them drinking or using drugs – 44 percent
- Candidate bad-mouthed their previous employer, co-workers or clients – 35 percent
- Candidate showed poor communication skills – 29 percent
- Candidate made discriminatory comments – 26 percent
- Candidate lied about qualifications – 24 percent
- Candidate shared confidential information from previous employer – 20 percent
If you don’t clean up your act before looking for a job, be prepared to lose a great opportunity. It is already getting very difficult to land a job in this economy, why make it harder?
3. Becoming an Easy Target
Facebook not only helps friends keep track of your whereabouts, but it helps robbers too. Apparently some New Hampshire robbers checked Facebook to figure out who would be home at a certain time of the day. With people describing their detailed vacation plans on Facebook/Twitter, which might be accessed by anyone, it makes it very easy for robbers to target you. Also, now that Facebook has the “check-in” feature, prospective criminals can easily see if you just “checked-in” someplace far away, which tells them you are not home. In 2007, the average loss for a residential burglary was $1,991. Don’t let yourself fall victim.
4. Insurance agents
Yes, insurance agents. Do you like putting pictures of how you would like to take your car street racing? Or do you proudly state in your status that you are a chain smoker? Expect your car insurance and your life insurance to shoot up. Though there is no reliable methods in place for data mining Facebook, an increasing number of insurers are using Facebook to provide better services to customers as well as judge customers. An inappropriate posting or a picture could cause your insurance to be canceled or the price to go through the roof. With insurance rates set to rise nationwide, don’t let a picture get you in trouble.
5. Identity Fraudsters
We take so many steps to avoid identity theft in real life, but for some reason we let ourselves loose in the digital world. A lot of people put their home address, exact birth date and even mother’s maiden name online in their profile. About 40% of social media users shared their physical address in social media sites and 90% of them (gasp!) didn’t view the privacy policy before using the site. Any identity theft will cause a great deal of money and headache to fix. Even though there are many new federal and state laws to protect victims of identity theft, it still ends up costing the average victim $373 dollars to fix all the problems caused by the thief.
I am sure a lot of people here use Facebook. Have you checked your privacy settings? Are you sure your information is safe and won’t cost you any money?
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Not to mention FB makes it really hard to delete your account! Privacy is not dead for those who still value it!
Very true…even if you cancel your Facebook account, it still lives on. If you ever sign back in, nothing is lost – they basically freeze your account in time!
Very true! I was contacted by a headhunter through facebook last year! Needless to say, I cranked up all the privacy settings following that!
Hey, that’s not as bad as it could have been. At least you may have been in a position to make more money!
I really enjoyed this post! This is so true. A lot of my FB friends play farmville and some of them are going crazy over it. I was always thinking – What the hell? Go get a life, start a blog. LOL Employers do use the Internet to research potential candidate. Everyone should be careful of what we put out there about ourselves. You never know who is reading!
Exactly – I think it’s pretty common now for employers to look at your public profiles. Heck, some employers have been asking for passwords. It’s getting crazy!
Yes, all of this! I’ve been trying to convince my 20 year old cousin that her Facebook should be clean enough for Grandma and
Oops, hit it too soon!
It should be clean enough for Grandma and she shouldn’t put up anything that could get her arrested. She’s under 21 and has drinking pictures up. She’s got way too much flirty sexy stuff up, too. At some point she’s going to want to get an adult job and these will come back to haunt her!
Another way Facebook costs you money: lost productivity. It’s costing employers millions of dollars. Not good at all!
Seriously! When it comes time to apply for that “adult job”, she better turn that profile to private.
I think it’s hilarious that people spend money on virtual farm animals. More power to ’em!
I worry about my friends who post when they are going on vacation. It really is an open invitation for someone to rob you while your gone. I have to have a talk with my wife and make sure she doesn’t advertise our next trip :).
Not just vacations, but “checking-in” at restaurants too! If a crook knows you are across town, time to break in!
The amount of people that don’t hike up their security or limit the amount of sharing is astounding. Potential employers and burglars can utilize the internet at a great benefit for them. Great post, I also can’t believe the amount of money Zynga makes on apps!
Also, ID Theft is a great possibility with Facebook. Facebook is a great site and tool, it just helps to be cautious.
You really need to be cautious, especially when using any social network. It’s best to make sure you know who can see your profile, and make sure that you know them personally.
Thanks for posting this…found your site through SPI. Great info! I’m amazed at the number of people who post EXACTLY where they are at any given time! Unbelievable!
Those check-ins are crazy! Okay…I know you’re an hour from home…time to go break into your house!
I just did an article titled, ‘Farmville Cheats and the BigMac’.
I found it amazing how many people are searching for ways to win a game:) Think I’ll stick with my own garden.
Thanks for a good article.
Live it LOUD!
Haha, I can’t believe that people are looking for cheats and hacks for silly online games like Farmville. Anyway to get ahead I guess.
Wow, all the information about fraud and identity theft makes me wonder what information I should remove from Facebook.
It’s not even about removing information, but making sure that you have the right privacy settings as to who can access your information. It’s also about being smart with what you share.
More reasons why Im doing my best not to sign up for facebook! 🙂 I’m trying to avoid that place but its kinda hard when everyone and their mom is signed up
My wife doesn’t have a Facebook account either. At this point, she doesn’t even feel the urge to, since it’s been so long without one.