There have been many instances of individuals getting suspended or even booted off LinkedIn for a variety of reasons. Usually it is more of a temporary suspension rather than a true booting, but I know of several very high profile cases where they are here no more and it seems to be very much on the rise.
In one case I am sure it cost the individual hundreds of thousands of dollars as he was a very successful, high profile recruiter (and still is for the most part). I prefer to respect the individuals privacy, but the big LinkedIn users amongst us probably know those whom I am referring to.
Click here to see the LinkedIn End User License Agreement. It will scare you. In a later post, I will pick it apart and show you where the real dangers are. In our LinkedIn training and consulting business (3 years now) we have to pay close attention to these things.
Do you have a story to tell about getting suspended, removed, severely restricted or some other unusual level of “badness” concerning your LinkedIn account? I do not mean “5 IDK’s and you are restricted” types of infractions. I have been restricted 7 times for IDK violations on my way to building a LinkedIn network of over 25,000. It just happens and it is considered “collateral damage” by those of us with large networks.
Please share your story about what you did to get in the situation, what happened to you and what the end result was. Some advice concerning lessons learned would be appreciated by all.
{ 4 comments }
What are the major reasons why people get suspended?
Great question Steve! All of the reasons are for violations of the End User License Agreement (the EULA). But some of the major reasons are:
1) having anything in the name field other than your name
2) listing your email address and/or phone number in your headline
3) having repeated offenses of your messages or posts being flagged as spam
4) having an outstanding invoice – pay those bills if you can find them!
A couple of very serious infractions include:
5) setting up fake profiles to “phish” for information or to defraud users
6) scraping information from profiles to use in an unauthorized marketing campaign
We put a post out on Twitter asking for examples of people that had been suspended and why. This is a great place to post those comments.
Hello Steve,
My access to my network has been suspended without notice, I received an automated email from Customer service and I’ve replied several times and get another automated reply asking me if I know what I did? it’s frustrating.
I posted a comment in my comment section about a company and it’s owner about their accounting practices, that they were double dipping finance charges and using fuzzy math and I told my network to be Buyer Beware.
I did not tell anyone not to use their service just to be aware that they need to ask bout how finance charges would be calculated.
The company contacted Linkedin and claimed abuse and I have been restricted from my contacts since Sunday. this has cost me unrealized business, because I can not reply to pending request for my business.
I have asked Linked in to call me or give me a number to call them and discuss, and I got an email that customer service only uses email no phone service.
I have asked who determines the remarks are slanderous in nature with no reply. I just receive another email asking me if I know what I did???
Extremely frustration and arbitrary on such a powerful tool and resource.
It is hard without having a phone number! The wait is so totally frustrating.
Why don’t you connect with me by email at training@integratedalliances.com and let’s see if we can find more specifics and figure out how to get a response from customer service.
Here is a good lesson for people though: what is considered unprofessional behavior is not tolerated and can be removed by LinkedIn. It’s better to use other platforms for these issues. If you wouldn’t say it in a business meeting in front of your customers and peers, don’t say it on LinkedIn.
Comments on this entry are closed.