LinkedIN - Virtual Assistant Forums

StephanieP · #1 (**permalink**) 05-16-2008

I don't really think this is a scam because it's from LinkedIn but it's still pretty weird.

I received an email at my personal Yahoo! account saying that so-and-so, a past collegue at the organization I work for (correct organization name) invited me to join her LinkedIn network. The strange thing is, she works at our retail location a couple of hours away, she's been with us since January and I've never met the girl other than IMs and saying "hi" to her on the phone. I have no idea whatsoever how she would have gotten a hold of my personal email address.

I want to send her an IM asking her, but I don't want her to think I'm mad or anything if she did send it. I'm just really curious how she got my personal address.

Has anyone else had something like this happen to them?

eve_k0802 · #2 (**permalink**) 05-16-2008

That is kind of weird. But maybe she got it from someone you work with? Are you sure you don't have the email address listed in your profile on LinkedIn? I know you can add a couple of email addresses - did you put it in there by mistake? If the email was from LinkedIn and it's not on your profile, you should get in touch with them and find out how they got it, and ask that it be removed, if you want to keep it private.

Yvone

vainparadise · #3 (**permalink**) 05-16-2008

Possibly she has a contact on her LinkedIn that has your personal email and she got it that way? I would check her network out and see if you personally know someone on there that has your personal email address.

StephanieP · #4 (**permalink**) 05-16-2008

That's the weird thing. I'm not a LinkedIn member. At least I don't remember signing up...lol I've hardly ever sent her an email and, if I do, it's always from my work email. A couple of the people in the office have my personal email address for jokes and such, but there's no reason why they would have sent it to her or even send her a joke that may have included my personal email address in the group. No one really knows her that well for that.

#5 (**permalink**) 05-16-2008

Originally Posted by StephanieP

That's the weird thing. I'm not a LinkedIn member. At least I don't remember signing up...lol I've hardly ever sent her an email and, if I do, it's always from my work email. A couple of the people in the office have my personal email address for jokes and such, but there's no reason why they would have sent it to her or even send her a joke that may have included my personal email address in the group. No one really knows her that well for that.

Ah! thats where she found it, on these "round robin" joke emails, they leave a trail of email addresses for anyone to get hold of, one of your colleagues could have sent it to a friend, who sent it to a friend, who etc....... and thats how she got it - these leave email trails and I have found email addresses this way before and some people actually have programs to harvest email addresses from these - that's why they are so popular - they are often started for just that reason.

I would think she got your email address from one of these. You don't have to be registered with LinkedIn for anyone to invite you, if your colleague has a program in her email account such as Outlook, this can be set to add all email addresses to your address book - when you join Linked In, you get the choice whether to invite people or not, by adding your email accounts and passwords, LinkedIn then harvests all your contacts and invites them to join on your behalf.

I hope this helps explain the mystery!

Sally

StephanieP · #6 (**permalink**) 05-22-2008

Thanks! I think I finally figured it out. All of a sudden, I remembered that I got an invite from a friend who works for Avon a few months back and signed up back then. I have 2 whole contacts now. One mystery solved...lol

Question: Should I delete this profile and create a new one when my business goes live or can I change this one to reflect my business (email, business name, etc.)