Identifying LinkedIn Spammers

Seems no place online is safe from spammers. I expect that LinkedIn will sort this out – but I recently became aware of spam naughtiness on LinkedIn.

The red flag was a strange one. I don’t accept everyone that asks on LinkedIn, as I wrote on the post Open Networking on LinkedIn: Choosing to Connect with Everyone. I noticed something was off because the request came from <Insert Name of Tragic Murder Victim> and the headline stated she was an accountant.  I remembered this victim was also an accountant. Apparently this spammer has a sick sense of humor. I thought it may be a coincidence – and a bummer for this person. But the profile photo was not the head shot most people use on LinkedIn. I opened the profile and found only one job listed. I chose to ignore the invitation.

Yesterday I received another request to connect – different name, same profile photo. This request came through a LinkedIn Group with over 12,000 members, including me.  Like the previous profile, only one job is mentioned under Experience and she had only a few connections.

This time I reported it as Spam. When you look at the list of pending invitations, LinkedIn has added a button that allows you to identify an invitation as spam:

Recommendations

• Don’t accept invitations from people you don’t know with the gold button on emails. Wait until you are at your computer to click on the profile. If the profile lists few jobs with no detail, no additional information and very few connections – stop before you accept.  It may be someone who has not completed their profile or it may be a spam invitation. Decide if you would like to include the person in your LinkedIn network.

• If the profile does not look complete, but it is someone you would like to have in your network, click on the right arrow next to Accept and click Reply (don’t accept yet).  Send a quick note explaining you don’t normally accept invitations to connect from people you don’t know so you want to introduce yourself. Wait for a response before you accept the invitation.

• If the invitation is from someone you don’t see a value to connecting with – don’t connect.  Remember that once you connect, they will see your connections and your email address. Click the Ignore button.  If there are any indicators that it may be spam (like seeing the same profile photo multiple times), consider hitting the Report Spam button.

So you are not mistaken as a spammer on LinkedIn, develop your LinkedIn profile.  Helpful tips to complete your profile:

Setting up the Ultimate LinkedIn Profile – Part 1

Setting up the Ultimate LinkedIn Profile – Part 2