Business Insurance recently posted an article about an employee from Ohio who was caught, through Facebook, defrauding the workers’ compensation system. The story is a familiar one – someone is careless about posting pictures and status updates on Facebook and gets caught. In this instance it was an employee who was injured at work in Ohio and received workers’ compensation benefits under Ohio law. He eventually moved to Arizona and found work in construction, but continued to collect his comp benefits. After receiving an anonymous tip, the Ohio Workers’ Compensation Bureau found photos posted to Facebook of him doing rappelling work at his new job. He was ordered to pay back $7,600 in benefits.

The story is a good reminder that social networking sites such as Facebook are an important investigation tool. These sites do not always uncover a smoking gun, but even when they do not, they often contain valuable information to use in the investigation of a claim.

Social networking sites should be checked as part of any initial investigation. Some people do not use privacy settings on their account so the information is available to the public. Other times, there may be a trustworthy co-worker who is Facebook friends with the claimant and would have access to the claimant’s Facebook profile. However, you should not use false pretenses to gain access to a claimant’s Facebook profile you do not have access too.

Even if you cannot access the full Facebook profile, most settings allow the public to view the profile picture. This may be particularly useful to an investigator conducting surveillance. Finally, other sites, such as Twitter, Linked-In and even Pinterest should not be overlooked.