I remember the day she told me. “I signed up for LinkedIn Pro. I need it to apply for jobs. It’s cheap, less than $10 a month. Don’t worry about it.” Truthfully, I didn’t give it a second thought much less worry about it. In hindsight I wish I had.
A few months ago, I was trying to reassure her that we weren’t doing so bad, that her sideline work was bringing in some cash. So I got her to start depositing her business income directly into her business account so she would have evidence of what her work was actually bringing in. The account her LinkedIn Pro draws off off.
I’ll bet you can guess where I’m going with this.
I needed to pay some bills, so that day came when I asked her (just like I said I would) for money from the business account. So she gave me access to the account. I do most of the money juggling, but I hadn’t ever needed access to her business account before. I transferred the amount I needed. While I was doing that, I noticed a $34 dollar charge from LinkedIn listed as having just posted a few days earlier.
Well, that’s odd. It’s certainly more than the 9 plus change I was assured it would be. It was more than the amount that she had read it would be. In reading the webpage trumpeting the merits of LinkedIn Pro today she noticed that the charge amount varies from refresh to refresh. Seems kind of peculiar, don’t you think?
What I find more than peculiar, downright infuriating even, is that LinkedIn charges job seekers right up front; money that the poor, unemployed person really can’t afford to part with. Charges them in a way that the vast majority of headhunting services don’t do. Charges them when a good portion of assistance agencies are either forbidden to, or choose not to because what is being offered is a charitable service.
Now, I have run into these kinds of profiteers before. Every person who has looked for a job over the years probably has. “You can make thousands of dollars a week if you just invest a few hundred right now and take our free training courses that show you how to make money using our system” They’ve even gotten clever over the years, disguising themselves as MLM or direct marketing, duping people into giving them money they don’t really have on the promise that they’ll win big in the end. Some of them disguise themselves as headhunting services, they just need a few dollars up front, but they promise to find you a job eventually.
Where I come from we call that a confidence game, a scam. Well, this scam that LinkedIn is running netted them over $400 from an account I wasn’t monitoring, but will be monitoring from now on. I will be talking to authorities as well, because I remain convinced that what they are engaged in is usurious at best, fraudulent at worst.
I’m onto you LinkedIn. I have canceled my account with you. You clearly cannot be trusted with information in any way. I encourage anyone currently using that service to remove themselves from it immediately, before you become a victim of their fraudulent behavior.
