Strange happenings at LinkedIn

Invitations I never sent.  Are you getting acceptances from people for invitations you haven’t sent at LinkedIn? I’ve had the same thing happen. These are for people I do not know personally and would not be in any address contact list that I own.  They are genuine in that I can go to LinkedIn and see the acceptance message, but I don’t know the people and have never conversed with them via a forum or other means.  LinkedIn does have a discussion forum and there have been many people complaining about this same thing. You can see one of the threads here.

The LinkedIn staff do oversight but often it can be a week or two, or more, before you hear from them. If you have a concern it is better that you contact them direct and not hold your breath waiting for a reply. Seems to me they’ve gotten too busy and don’t have enough staff to cope with the load.

To add to the complication there have been fake invitation reminders sent out to people and they look like they’re coming from LinkedIn but aren’t really.  Not something we really need.  There’s a discussion about this here at LinkedIn. But it’s not really something LinkedIn can do anything about. Best to report the spam if you can ID the spammer, or delete it.

What about if you have sent invitations that you now wish to withdraw?  Perhaps you gave LinkedIn access to your address book and now regret doing that because it’s sending invitations to everyone, including your Vet, Doctor, or the parents of the kids down the street? You can withdraw them – but only one by one, which is a time wasting exercise.  You’ll need to go to Invitations, then the Sent folder and click on the title for each invitation to view it, then click on Withdraw.

Endorsements for things I don’t do.  Have you been frustrated, like me, when people endorse you for skills you don’t have? Or perhaps they are people who have never used your services and don’t know you well at all? I feel the endorsement thing has been overused to the point that people don’t believe them or overlook them now. The Recommendations listed on your profile is much more believable and a better tool I feel.  But apparently LinkedIn feel it has improved the amount of activity on their site – yes, because it’s in everyone’s face when they visit a profile, and perhaps they feel they have to endorse, or should, before leaving. If in doubt, I suggest you don’t – unless you know for sure that person really does that thing.  Again, there is discussion about it here.  You can remove endorsements you’ve accidentally accepted, again one-by-one.

While I still feel that LinkedIn is a great tool for business I do believe it has gone overboard, perhaps feeling the need to compete with Facebook (heaven knows why, as it’s a completely different tool) or Twitter, or something.  There’s room for all three.