Best question of the week: what to do about nuisance messaging?

There came another example of frustration with LinkedIn that I really wish they woud resolve. Great question:

Am I the only one who gets a ton of messages from people I don’t know? At least LinkedIn flags many of them saying “this message may contain unwanted or harmful content”

I get these nuisance InMails and connection requests a lot too, so it seems I need to re-cover the topic for those of you similarly afflicted: No you are in great company with others of us who use this tool well, and those very few abusers make us nuts.

So this is what you can do, and it’s not perfect or foolproof, but at least tell LinkedIn that you are not standing for it!

• Be sure the person asking to connect or send that Inmail is real by opening a new LinkedIn tab on your browser and searching for their name.
  • Not finding anything, report it to LinkedIn!
  • Found them? Do they seem real or fake?
    • If they seem fake, like really young super-achievers who went to Harvard B school and them worked at GE, and now cut hair in Ghana (yes, that’s what I had many more than a few times!), then report them!
    • And if they seem real, can you help them or not?
      • If not, block them.
      • If you think there may be a glimmer of a slight  possibility that they need you (or you need them), ask how they found you, or better research who you both know in common and ask that middle person how they know the connection> I think you are going to find out that they really have no idea…then ignore the connection request or deep-six the InMail.

That’s my decision tree for this stuff.

Here’s the step-by step for reporting (just click the report this button) and block it.

A word here to manage your expectations: LinkedIn does a lame job of agreeing with you that these poor lonely souls are something to repudiate and seem unwilling to do anything about it. They quote the Professional Community Policies and In almost every case I report, they research it and the AI generated message comes back, fairly quickly as in minutes, from the LinkedIn Trust and safety team (who provide very little in those departments!):

Not what I wanted them to do but I am playing my community role of reporting it in hopes that enough of us get their attention and they admit they have a problem and solve it for all of us.

So I say, LinkedIn is self-policing  and we need to report these.

Then block them! It may be all the satisfaction you get….