It seems that there's a big spike in fake profiles on Linkedin. These profiles are used by scammers to get information out of you that they then exploit for financial gain. This technique has been called "Social Engineering" for a long time; the fact that it's been around for a long time tells you all you need to know about its effectiveness.
Linkedin has a good (despite being rather old) blog post about how to spot a fake profile.
My attitude has always been to ignore requests from Linkedin users who I don't recognize, and who don't craft a personalized invitation pointing out how I've worked with them (or someone I know) in the past. "I'd like to add you to my professional network" messages from folks I don't recognize go straight to the bit bucket.
What is this Linkedin you speak of?
ReplyDeleteThat it's necessary to constantly remind people in this day and age not to give out personal information to ANYONE online still amazes me. Then again, I just saw a video the other day in which a guy was walking around with a clipboard approaching random people and asking them for their personal information without once identifying himself, sadly they all too willingly gave him everything he asked for. smh
Last week I got notice from Linkedin that my invitation to someone I'd never heard of had been accepted. What?? I don't recall ever inviting anyone to join my network.
ReplyDeleteI figure anyone wanting in can always find me. There's only about seven people with my name in the entire country.
That tells me there's more going on behind the scene than we know and it's not for our benefit. I probably should read those Linkedin messages more often rather than just deleting them out of hand.
I get numerous invites from people I've never heard of, and that none of my friends know, via LinkedIn.
ReplyDeleteThey go right into the "ignore" file....
I'm not so hot on real LinkedIn invitations, either.
ReplyDelete