LinkedIn scam comes full circle, by pretending to be LinkedIn

By | August 15, 2014

LinkedIn don’t seem to be taking seriously the extensive use of their network by scammers, as I went on about here. Maybe this will make them change their mind: use of their own company in a scam profile (might not be up long, see screenshot.)

The Jeffrey Westwood in question is a stock photo from Thinkstock used in a number of places, such as this website focused on building sales leaders, and this insurance website.

I’m going to reach out to see whether LinkedIn are taking this kind of thing more seriously, given that not only could a simple algorithm catch these kinds of profiles, but that by using LinkedIn as his company the scammer should have set off other alarm bells somewhere in a LinkedIn cubicle (“Does anyone know this Jeffery Westwood fella?” “Nope. Must be new.”)

[Update: LinkedIn appear to have removed the profile in response to my query, but not answered my questions. Will try again.]

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