Severing LinkedIn...
 

Has anyone successfully rinsed LinkedIn out of their online hair?

I joined about 15 years ago to manage the company account which somebody had set up with badly worded text, etc. I subsequently had to rebuild it twice as LinkedIn reset stuff and used it to advertise vacancies and post company news; when my company went bust (parent company Carillion's spectacular nose dive) I changed my account to my personal gmail (secondary email account), posted a company farewell, and thought I might find a job... Having eventually taken my pension I wanted to close it and went round in ever more frustrating circles. Three years later I tried again (in Jan I think), my entry is still there, my gmail still gets bombarded daily by utterly pointless linkedin emails and my password doesn't work because I closed my account. Doh! I think Ricky Gervais might have a pithy five lettered single syllable plural descriptor for them.

All I actually want to do is contact somebody and tell them to delete my account completely but I don't seem to be able to that without logging back in...

Is there a good online comms authority who can read the riot act at them in the UK? Any suggestions gratefully received....

Years ago I inadvertently got my email registered with Who Remembers Me? (actually a colleague invited me and I stupidly had a look at the site to decide I wasn't remotely interested) and had an equally difficult time getting out of it and was bombarded by messages - except I was able to email them and on receipt of a "you need to register to unregister yourself" reply, I lost my temper and fired off a cease and desist or face the full might of whatever body governed such stuff - whoever that was 25 years ago. I didn't know that email replies could convey stammering, but the "done and sorry" response seemed to do so...

Thanks folks!

One option may be to invoke 'Data Protection' - they should only keep your details under specific reasons, and if you've closed your account there are very few of those.

If you try the company Data Protection Officer (all operating in the UK have to have one) and get nowhere, then the Information Commissioner should take an interest ;)

I haven't used my LinkedIn account for years and recently decided to log in and delete the account. Of
course, I don't remember my password so I went through the 'Forgot Password' routine thinking they'd
email me to 'Change Password'. No such thing happened.

They required me to send their 3rd Party provider Persona government issued ID including a facsimile of
my passport, a recent photo of myself (even though I never had one in my profile) and proof of my current
address. I replied to the help email address saying that my account hasn't been accessed for at least 10
years, I still get their useless emails telling me who is a friend of someone I know and that my derelict
account is just hogging resouces on their servers and would they please delete my account.They
haven't responded, that was 6 months ago. LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft ....
..
...
...

There is a 'Close and delete account' option in the settings on my LinkedIn account page. I guess you used that. If you continue to receive messages from them after that I would suggest going down the route Tocsin suggested. They no longer have any reason to contact you, so they should cease and desist.

That applies to about 95% of the spam that I get on a daily basis. I must try that. :O

Only recommended for genuine companies - for spam-farms the only solution is a stiff ignoring (and rules for junk...) :)

Thank you for your responses and advice, most helpful! I am not alone... :ok:

I found an independent web page which includes a number of LinkedIn email addresses, so I will try one of those and CC the rest, with a threat of a complaint to the information commissioner and see how that goes...

https://support.linkedhelper.com/hc/...pport-directly
https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/...on-complaints/

Cheers, Treadders

Hi Treadders,

I found one help contact form which doesn't require you to log in :

https://www.linkedin.com/help/linked...li-default-new

I'll let you know if I have any success with my account deletion request :)

Apparently, hopefully, I have just disconnected with LinkedIn via Google Play - we shall see!

It appears I was successful in leaving LinkedIn. I sent an email to all the addresses in Treadders' first link and also filled out the contact form I linked to in my post. Thanks Treadders !

I received an email with this message :

We're sorry to see you go

Your LinkedIn account is now closed. Although you no longer have access to it, it'll take a few weeks for your public profile to disappear from search engines.

You may still receive invitations from LinkedIn members and groups.

You may reactivate your account within 14 days from today by signing back in, or if you wish to reactivate within the next 48 hours, you may use this link: Reactivate my Account
Note: If you purchased your Premium subscription via Apple, you must also cancel the subscription directly with Apple to prevent future billing.
If you signed up for LinkedIn using login credentials from a third party provider (such as Gmail, Facebook, or Apple), please be sure to unlink your account from LinkedIn via the third party’s site. Learn more

Thanks,
The LinkedIn Team
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TWT I had a similar response when I finally cancelled the account in January or whenever - but there I still am! Just fired off an email to Customer Services, cc'd to the rest, threatening to sneak on them with the Info Commissioner if they don't delete me forthwith. See wot happens next...

Maybe update your profile to something so fantastically unbelievable they delete you if none of the other actions work. Downside would be you are inundated with fruitcakes wanting to connect if they don’t delete it. Not aware whether you could create a burner email and update you details either.

:ok: Couple of good options would be to plagiarise the CVs of either The Chancellor of the Exchequer or The Leader of The Green Party - both of which seem to embroider minimal fact with considerable fantasy!

King of the Universe has a certain ring to it, I expect at least a knighthood if it works.

When I'm PM, it's a deal...

Telegraph had a very entertaining sketch on Zit Wally's CV the other day.. "while at so and so I invented tartan paint" etc...

Update: no replies so far from LinkedIn... I will give it another week!