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.
Thanks for sharing! I was equally suspicious and when I did my Google search your article for “Sandra Hammington” appeared. Of course the image of “Sandra” is also a stock photo – https://www.bigstockphoto.com/image-128465273/stock-photo-portrait-of-casual-female-employee-participating-in-a-project-during-a-team-brainstorming. Mystery solved (and blocked), hopefully your post will help a few others as well.
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.