How to spot a fake LinkedIn account

LinkedIn has become indispensable for owners, managers, and professionals. The platform's rise also brings its downsides — including fakes.

LinkedIn has become an indispensable tool for business owners, managers, and professionals in general. The rise of the platform brings its own problems, though. One of them is the surge in fake accounts impersonating real people and trying to extract money from users.

In this post we'll dive deep into the world of fake and fraudulent accounts.

Spotting fake accounts

Most social-media scams target emotions, and LinkedIn is no exception. After all, who wouldn't want to magically get rich, or instantly solve their problems? And if the source is a self-styled expert on the topic, the bait is that much more tempting.

How do you tell a fraudulent account from a real one?

Incomplete profiles and missing or generic profile pictures

Fake profiles tend to be incomplete or nonsensical. The information on them tends to be patchy and the photos are stock images. One frequent shortfall is the lack of detailed, very specific information.

Unrealistic promises and promotional content

Fake and fraudulent accounts mostly try to reach the largest possible audience and pitch as many people as possible — hence the absurd claims and pie-in-the-sky promises. Despite naming everything their product can solve, they usually skip the details about the product itself. Real professionals on LinkedIn try to build a relationship with potential customers.

So be careful, because if an offer sounds too good to be true, it almost certainly has a catch.

Pointless connection requests

Fake accounts mostly target everyone, regardless of industry or specialization. Be careful, and check people's profiles before responding. Treat it as prevention — if you don't engage with a fake account in the first place, you obviously can't fall for it.