LinkedIn is one of the most popular social networks and that, obviously and unfortunately, brings along its set of challenges. In other words, there is a growing number of LinkedIn scams, targeting job seekers, companies and everyone in between.
In this article, we’ve prepared the list of what we deem to be 5 of the most common LinkedIn scams, which — we believe — everyone should know about.
1. Fake LinkedIn profiles
All kinds of scams on LinkedIn and elsewhere start with a fake profile. Therefore, when someone wants to connect with you on LinkedIn, you should do your best to check out his/her profile page and look for red flags. Adding contacts left and right just to hit some number won’t serve you in any meaningful manner.
Rather, whenever possible, connect to people who you’ve met in some other situation. Except, of course, when that’s not an option. Or when you do want to expand your circle by reaching out to other folks from the industry you’re in.
Nevertheless, you should put in a few minutes in order to make sure that the person on the other end is a real individual rather than some fake personality “designed” to lure you into some “too good to be true” deal.
A few things you should check:
- Profile photo – beautiful people and professional looking photos are often used in LinkedIn scams (and also on other social networks). This is not always the case, but you should keep checking, nevertheless.
- Search for the company the proposed contact works for. Check its website if they have one and do judge the book by its cover.
- Scan the profile for red flags. Specifically, scammers often present themselves as experienced executives so see what kind of a picture their previous experience paints. On the other hand, you also want to check whether they’ve added too many skills. If they’re good to be true – chances are that is indeed the case.
- Everyone older than 20 offering anything on LinkedIn should have more than 500 connections. Period. If they don’t have that many, that’s a red flag.
- Check for grammar and spelling, as many scammers want to get rich quickly and “don’t have time” to fix their writing mistakes. Also, most don’t live in countries where English is one of the official languages.
2. Fake job offers
Phishing on LinkedIn typically comes in the form of a message from a fake recruiter, offering an interesting job. The message you receive also tends to include a sense of urgency to pressure you into clicking a link. And once you click on the link, you will be required to provide some additional information, such as your email and personal data.
DO NOT, and I repeat, DO NOT react to any “urgent matter.” When you think about it, you will seldom see people urgently employing unknown contacts. Where’s the due diligence in that?
Similarly, you may be offered a job but you will have to get special training and/or materials which, of course, are not free. Rather, you will be asked to buy them upfront. And yes, it’s a scam.
3. LinkedIn is shutting down your account? (NOT)
Another way scammers get attention is by sending messages with subject lines that refer to “LinkedIn Closing” and/or “Termination of Your Account.” Such messages are made to entice you to click as you obviously don’t want to see your LinkedIn profile disappearing.
If you’ve been using LinkedIn without any third party tools that could help you quickly contact hundreds of contacts – you have nothing to worry about.
4. Tech support scams
In this scam, LinkedIn isn’t closing your account, but is contacting you to verify your account — or something of that sort. You would get a regular email (rather than a LinkedIn message) from someone pretending to be LinkedIn and the message may even look legit — featuring the LinkedIn logo and colors. There is also a link included, which won’t open a page on LinkedIn but on some other website, asking you to log in with your LinkedIn username and password.
This way, the scammer would get your LinkedIn credentials, allowing him/her to spam your contacts and send them promotional messages — hoping that someone will end up buying a product/service that you recommend. Cause, as far as they see, it is you who is sending them the message rather than a scammer.
In order to avoid this scam, you should look at the email that sent you the message and see whether it’s indeed coming from a @linkedin.com email or not. And the same goes for the URL – it too should be linkedin.com/SOMETHING.
5. The inheritance scam
Finally we have the inheritance scam that we also know from the email. In the “LinkedIn setting,” instead of getting information about the fake, rich cousin who died via email – you get it as a LinkedIn message or through LinkedIn’s InMail system.
The scenario is similar. Someone you never heard of before sends you a message that some rich dude has died and left a ton of money behind but they can’t find his/her relative. Now their quest is close to the end as they’ve found you.
Once you agree to “participate” in this scheme, they will ask you for more information and at some point, even some cash upfront so they could set up the transaction to your account. The moment you send them the money – chances are, you won’t be hearing from them anymore.
As that’s the case with similar email scams, you should be wary of anyone offering you a ton of money without working for it.
Use your best judgment to protect yourself
As you have seen, none of these scams require much, if any, technical skill and are in that sense very popular. On the other hand, it’s also relatively easy to spot them — which is why scammers send a ton of messages and keep opening new LinkedIn accounts in order to facilitate their schemes.
Your best protection against these scams is neither an anti-virus nor a VPN – it’s your brain. If you don’t know the person sending you the message, be skeptical. It’s that simple.