Are you an amateur burglar hoping to nab some extra loot this weekend? Good news; there's an app for that! No, it isn't called iBurgle or anything like that. It's called Facebook. Yes, everyone's beloved social networking site and the app that goes with it can be used as an aid to someone looking to rob you of your possessions.

The 'big thing' at the moment is checking in to places you visit. At the station? Check in on Facebook and let everyone see where you are. Out for a meal with a friend? Check in at the restaurant, and even tag them with you!

The thing is, though, is the check in feature is getting misused. Users have started checking in at their house, or at their friends' houses. A very popular one is to check in at "My Bed" (usually accompanied by a winking emoticon, because everything needs implied sexual references these days).

Screenshot of the iPhone app's list of nearby places to check into. Four of them are people's beds, and a further three are people's houses in general.

So how can we burglars use this to our advantage? Well, let's come up with an imaginary situation. We have two people who are friends on Facebook. One of them is regular Joe, and the other is a potential criminal, looking for people to burgle – let's call him Rob. One day, Joe decides to check in at his bed on Facebook:

A made-up screenshot of a Facebook news feed, where Regular Joe has checked in at "My Bed ;)".

Rob can now click on the "My bed ;)" link and see a map of exactly where the check in occurred. He notes down the address – he now knows where Joe lives. Now all he has to do is wait for another check in from Joe, somewhere else:

Another fake news feed. This time Joe has checked in at London Victoria Train Station.

Great news for Rob; not only does he know where Joe lives, but also now knows that he's out of the house at the moment, and probably won't be back for a while. So off he goes to Joe's house, and commits the burglary he's been waiting for. Joe gets home that evening and…

One last news feed 'screenshot'. Joe has updated his status and it reads, "Where's my TV and computer?! I've been robbed! :(".

Joe now doesn't have a TV or a computer, all because he decided to check in at his bed. So the moral of the story is: never, ever, ever check in at your house on any location-based social network.

And if you have done so before, remove the post from your profile now. You can do this (on Facebook) by going to your profile, hovering over the post in question and choosing "Remove post" from the drop down list.

A screenshot of someone removing a post from Facebook.