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Be Cautious About Accepting Every LinkedIn Request

Sandra Hammington

I’ve been using LinkedIn for years, mostly to stay connected with people in the EDA, semiconductor and high-tech industries that I have personally worked with, or are interesting to me. If we are connected on LinkedIn then you’ll see a birthday greeting and anniversary kudos. You may even see that I post in several very specific industry Groups on LinkedIn through articles written at SemiWiki.com. With some 2,113 connections on LinkedIn to date I will accept requests to connect from students pursuing a degree in the sciences or even marketing.

Today I received a request from Sandra Hammington, with a company listed as The New York Times and position of Reporter:

 

 

I was a little bit curious, impressed and surprised that a reporter would want to connect with me, so right away I did a quick Google search, however even Google couldn’t find this person listed. Next, I read the note from the invitation and quickly saw grammar errors that a reporter would never make. My conclusion?

This is a fake account from a person wanting access to me or my contacts, probably in an effort to sell me something that i don’t really want.

The moral of the story is to be a bit suspicious of your next invitation to connect on LinkedIn, because not everyone is legitimate online or in person.

2 thoughts on “Be Cautious About Accepting Every LinkedIn Request”

  1. Thanks Jeff for finding that bogus LinkedIn profile photo from the stock photography site. In this era of so-called “fake news” we now have to deal with “fake LinkedIn profiles” too.

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