Linkedin Scam?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I work in Africa and received on Linkedin below message from a new contact:

On her profile it is listed that she works for a well known company (not a recruitment company). However, there is no other information on her page. No uni, other work experience, etc. Moreover, she only has 59 contacts of which 38 are new and none of them work for the company she works for.

I won’t be sending my CV. I am just curious to what the angle is here.

I have a few suspicions:

[ul]
[li]They will ask for a process fee for your job application[/li][li]Once they have more detailed information about you they can use that to kidnap you (quite common here)[/li][/ul]
Has anyone heard of similar scams or know what is actually going on here?

2

Could just be someone looking for your type of work, but too lazy or inept to write their own CV, so wishes to blag yours.

3

Apparently there are some where they get you to fax the CV and get a commission from the fax number.
http://www.jobmail.co.za/blog/beware-new-scam-targeting-innocent-job-seekers/

4

I asked one of our IT guys here about this and he passed along a warning that scammers from Nigeria and Ghana are using LinkedIn to get information about about you. It used to be that I would get just e-mails from a Mr. Omoboye asking for help in getting an inheritance from his uncle but now they are moving into social media.

5

Thanks for the info. I also saw some sources where they were warning for identity theft.

6

I have received LinkedIn requests from total strangers. Even odder ones that purport to come from people I do know who made no such request. I finally concluded that I should keep clear of it.

7

My conclusion after dabbling in it and seeing how it actually works is that LInkedIn is the scam. I can’t think of a valid professional, executive or business contact or opportunity that’s come my way via it, and the only people I am linked to are people I already know well through other channels.

It’s a national/international Chamber of Commerce breakfast, whose primary function is to let insurance salesmen and similar “volume business” types work as big a crowd as possible.

8

My husband makes pretty extensive use of it. He’s gotten a number of job interviews from queries that started out of his linked in profile. When Amazon flies you out and puts you up in a hotel for interviews, it probably isn’t a scam - or if it is a scam, it didn’t cost us anything and he had a nice trip to Seattle. He’s also used it in recruiting.

Its very handy to look someone up before you get into interviews with them as well. You have some idea of the background of the people you are meeting and have a head start on candidates that haven’t bothered.

9

@Dangerosa, I don’t mean that LI is a scam on the face of it, just that it’s not nearly as useful as they and some classes of user would like it to be. I think the tendency to use it like Business Facebook and link to a zillion people so you can pester them about services (i.e., the insurance salesman sort of user) has limited its acceptance and will until it’s completely remodeled or replaced.

10

It is as useful as the people participating in it make it.

It is more useful for certain types of people because they make better use of it - technology professionals and technology executives (I was one before my semi-retirement, my husband the other). Between my husband and I we have over 1000 contacts and it isn’t used a a business facebook. Nor do people sell us stuff over it. I have a few sales side people as contacts, but good salespeople know you don’t make a million dollar sale by pestering someone with cold calls and flooding their inbox.

My husband collects contacts, the people he wants to steer clear of as well as the people he wants to stay in touch with. Once in a while he chortles with glee because someone has pinged him for a reference for the first set.