Avoiding LinkedIn Scams

I get a lot of connection requests from people I don't know. Most of these are sales people looking to sell me on a service that can generate leads, outsource my IT needs, or some other form of B2B service that is, frankly, boring. Occasionally though, I get a connection request from a scammer. Typically, these originate from China and the end goal is to try to scam me out of money through crypto fraud. It's serious enough that the FBI just issued a warning about it. I get these connection requests about once a week. I've never fallen for one because there are obvious red flags you can look for with each new connection request.

I decided to take some screen shots of the last scammer connection request I received earlier this week. Using this example, I'll highlight a few of the most glaring red flags you should look out for with each new connection request.

The Anatomy of a Scammer

The above is only one example but fairly typical of a LinkedIn scam profile. There are few elements that should strike you as suspicious right at first glance.

• The individual in the profile photo will typically be a younger Asian female, in a staged photo that looks more like it belongs on Instagram than LinkedIn
• The job title is often a junior or mid-level executive role, often in a company that is difficult to verify because it is so large (from this example, PSA is a massive enterprise)
• The person will have very few connections, especially for someone of that experience level working in such a massive company
• The college or university, if included in the header, will undoubtedly be a top-tier school like an Ivy or similar; surprisingly, the person will have no connections from that school
• The about section is a copy-and-paste from Wikipedia about the supposed employer, not actually about the person themselves

Scrolling down the profile some, we should be even more suspicious. All recent activity will have taken place very, very recently and often be nonsensical. Here we have the most recent post that sounds like it was taken from an inspirational coffee mug. The second is a seemingly irrelevant share of a press release.

Moving to the experience section, we will find one massive employer and one sole job title. The employment range will be just long enough to account for time directly out of college. The job description will be vague and generic, as if copied from a job posting on Indeed.

If we take a peek at education, besides the aforementioned prestige school, many other details will not add up. Often the degree will be a graduate degree but there will be no undergraduate education listed. Master's degree programs are not known for their extracurricular activities, so the idea that she was in many clubs and societies that are not part of the graduate school experience, should raise a ton of questions. Lastly, for some inexplicable reason, she has chosen to paste a description of the school in this space.

Taking a quick look at the profile of anyone who sends you a connection request can go a long way toward avoiding scammers. At the end of the day, LinkedIn is not heavily policed and profiles are not verified. Treat each unknown connection request with a sufficient amount of caution. You'll be thankful that you did.