Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Linkedin

A few months ago I deleted my Facebook account. Last week I deleted my Linkedin account. Why? For those of you who have not used Linkedin- its a "professional" site where you are invited to share what you do, where you work, your resume and contact details with others. The positive side is, it allows you to network your business, and link with colleagues.



However, in recent months I have been receiving bizarre overseas calls from call centres with English accents, Indian accents and Asian accents. All trying to sell me shares and bonds. In the most recent they rang my work number, then when I hung up, rang my mobile with this line " Hi Simon thanks for getting back to us re your purchase of gas and oil shares. I will forward our account details sand you can deposit "x" amount."



This utterly floored me. I explained that I had never contacted anyone either locally or overseas with this sort of enquiry- to which they argued and said " you are Simon ... of...... and work at.... and also ......



I simply hung up.. they then phoned my mobile 3 times, with a further two calls from another centre a few days later.



I can only think they get details from the networking sites and try the "hard sell". So goodbye Linkedin. However if this does not work, I will start to remove other things such as my website, blog, and even change phone numbers.



I would not do this if I felt it was random but its certainly not. 6 calls in 2 days is enough.....

8 comments:

  1. I must say I don't use LinkedIn as much as I probably should, but I do enjoy Facebook and Twitter. Maybe Twitter would suit you, Maalie and your mates.

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  2. HI Simon
    Well I have intentionally avoided Facebook and Linkedin for these very reasons [amongst others]..

    You know I had some colleagues who continually sent me links to join LinkedIn.. they couldn't understand my resistance.. huh!!

    Sorry you've getting this run around... I could say more about it but should take it offline..

    goodluck with it all.. xxx Julie

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  3. i dont have this but still am "out there" enough with fb and blog.
    ~laura

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  4. Hi Mate, I must say that I have signed up for Linkedin with no troubles and I have not heard of anybody else that has had any. Having said that, I don't really think it is going to catch on like Facebook has, but you never know. I never put my personal contact details on any of these sites - the idea is that they are supposed to contact you by email.

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  5. Julie- send me an email I am curious.

    Pooch- I guess its ok if you keep contact details to just emial.

    Maalie- this is where I used it as a complete portfolio of who i am, what I do , where I live etc. I was trying to drum up business instead I got this and a slight "fear" that my identity might have been used...

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  6. Yes, I agree, that is a worry.

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  7. Any action lined up for this weekend mate?

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  8. Not really mate. Massive headache last night- had 14 hours sleep! So I will take the bike to the shop for a service and bird watch along the Penrith lake system which seems to be filling up with birds...

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