LinkedIn Spam – Protect Yourself

LinkedIn has a growing Spam problem

Last Saturday I received 13 LinkedIn Connection requests and 12 of them were SPAM.  This can be hard to tell on your phone and I now realize I made some past mistakes accepting requests without taking a deep enough look at the profiles.  My mistake?  I relied on my network!  When you see a large number of common connections you automatically think the request is legit.

What does LinkedIn Spam look like?

Here is what happens when you connect with a SPAM account.  Anyone think getting these two messages back to back is fishy?

Identical messages with links and referencing a Tom Nelson on Skype.

So how do you protect yourself for LinkedIn Spam?

• If in doubt leave them out: the safest bet, and LinkedIn policy, is to only connect with people you actually know.  However, if you’re more open:
• Trust but verify:  ignore common connections, look at their profile and see if it looks kosher (tips below).
• Return to Sender:  Remove Spam contacts from your profile, click here to remove from your LinkedIn Contacts.
• Report as Spam: If you get a request from an obviously spam account then report it as spam!  Help us all out.

Spam is increasing across all social media platforms, however, we can police LinkedIn and save ourselves mutual aggravation by taking the above steps. If you want more advanced ways to spot spam please read on.

Other ways to verify spam LinkedIn Accounts

• Examine the profile and pass on those barely filled out.
• Look for obvious disconnects like location & company mismatches.
• Use http://images.google.com to verify the image matches the name.

 Review the photos below as an example!

Drag the photo from LinkedIn over to Google Images and see what you find!

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