I got a request from and added a person who I am fairly sure I have seen “around”, I think also on LinkedIn, probably as a contact of a contact. I never really paid any attention to details, but basically I feel that my familiarity with his profile picture spans about 2 years.

Then yesterday he requested to be a contact and I accepted, remembering my familiarity.
He seems to be a general manager at the Commercial Bank Of Dubai.

And a few hours after I accepted his request I get the following message:

Thanks for accepting my invitation on Linkedin. Please do contact me on my private email.I have a business proposal that I would like to share with you.
Thanks: ****
General Manager-Administration & Human Resources
Commercial Bank Of Dubai.com

Suddenly sounds like a scam.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/suspected-scammers-linkedin-harveen-narulla

This would be extremely easy to dismiss as a scam, except that LinkedIn is very strict on scammers and since I have seen him “around” for a long time I can’t imagine he would still have an account if he were scamming people.
But then again, just look at his message. Clearly a scam.

What is your take? Are LinkedIn’s policies not a strict as I thought? Could this guy have dodged the ban-hammer for more than 2 years with scams or could the 0.01% chance that it is real have happened?

L. Spiro

LinkedIn is huge, and policing it is going to be all but impossible in practice. I get recruiter spam on a daily basis through LinkedIn. I'm sure at least one a month is a scam, but who's going to chase down which ones are legit in the midst of all that volume?

In short: LinkedIn is basically useless as far as I'm concerned. It has some value when networking for jobs, but that's a rare occurrence for me at this point in my career, so I really don't see it as anything worth curating or keeping on top of. So it rots and collects invites from recruiters who can't be arsed to read my goddamn profile and/or don't know that web programming has no overlap with low-level C++ programming.



... I'm gonna stop before I rant a whole lot :-)

So it rots and collects invites from recruiters who can't be arsed to read my goddamn profile and/or don't know that web programming has no overlap with low-level C++ programming.

That's about the size of it.

I also get constant (and hilarious) offers of jobs in Urban Planning, on the basis that a classmate once submitted a paper we'd written on graph search algorithms to a Public Transit conference...

My favorite is when I get recruitment spam from LinkedIn, on LinkedIn.

(That said, I like it for keeping track of co-workers and where they land. The game industry has people bouncing around all over the place. Granted I'm facebook friends with the ones I know well, but this is nice for those that either don't use facebook or I didn't know well enough for facebook)

It's got a huge problem weeding out scammers.

This one's from my messages.

Dear xxxxxxx,

Am a banker working with Emirates National Bank Dubai here in U.A.E (United Arab Emirates ) I write to contact you over a very important business transaction which will be of our interest and benefit to our both families.

In 2006,one Mr.Shafi xxxxxxxxx,whose surname is same as yours and has your country in his file as his place of origin, made a fixed deposit for 36 months, valued at $14,500,000.00 with my bank. I was his account officer before I rose to the position of branch Accountant. The maturity date for this deposit is 16th of September 2009.Sadly Mr.Shafi was among the death victims in the May 12 2008 earthquake in China that left over 1,200 people dead while he was there on business trip.

Since the last quarter of 2009 until today, the management of my bank has been finding means to reach him so as ascertain if he will roll over the Deposit or have the contract sum withdrawn. When I discovered that this will happen, I have tried to think up a procedure to preserve this fund and use the proceeds for business.

Some directors here have been trying to find out from me the information about this account and the owner, but I have kept it closed because, I know that if they become aware that Mr.Shafi is late, they will corner the funds for themselves. Therefore, am seeking your co-operation to present you as the one to benefit from his fund at his death since you have the same name, so that my bank headquarters will pay the funds to you. I have done enough inside bank arrangement and you only have to put in your details into the information network in the bank computers and reflect you as his next of kin.

If you concur with this proposal, I intend for you to retain 50% of the funds while 50% shall be for me. Kindly forward your response to me.

Mr.Husam Sayed

Emirated National Bank Dubai (U.A.E)

Email: husam.sayed@accountant.com

Someone I know who also has an account on LinkedIn volunteered the information that I know C#, so now that's helpfully on my profile for recruiters looking for C# programmers.

The only problem is, I don't know C#, and the person who volunteered that information isn't a programmer, she's a middle-aged woman who I once fixed her computer for when too many viruses locked it up.

I've opted out of LinkedIn since it doesn't fit my long-term plans anyway.

Yeah, I hear a lot of endorsements come from misclicks from cellphones. I've certainly gotten a wide set of endorsements from people that I worked with years ago.

Endorsements appear to be automatically generated periodically by LinkedIn itself based on the order your skills appear in your list. My profile has ended up with an almost perfect triangle of skills-to-endorsements list, even for skills I have never used in recent jobs.

The only problem is, I don't know C#, and the person who volunteered that information isn't a programmer, she's a middle-aged woman who I once fixed her computer for when too many viruses locked it up.

Maybe she doesn't...


...


...


SEE SHARP!!


(Haaaaaaaa... !!)

EDIT:
???( ? )?????Moderators gonna moderate!?????( ? )?

[snip atrocity against all mankind]

I can't downvote in the lounge so I'll just ban you for that instead.