Help and advice needed re: LinkedIn etiquette, I am seething! Arbonne mailshots

[doubleshotespresso]

So, I am unsure that this may be the best place for posting on this subject, but really would appreciate some words of wisdom here....

Have had a LinkedIn account for a few years, though have been a SAHM for the past year and a half. Have been intermittently doing some work remotely, but have a face to face panel meeting scheduled with some contacts for next week, with a view to returning to work soon. Was excited about this until it came to light yesterday that one of my "connections" has messaged my entire contacts list with his "Amazing lifestyle-enhancing opportunity" from Arbonne, involving what reads like a hugely dodgy American-based pyramid scheme selling overpriced lotions and potions.... He failed to inform me and I discovered this via a friend who knew of my appointment next week and flagged it.

What is the best method for dealing with this, should I be contacting everybody with an apology? Will my new bosses view be hugely put off by this? I am so in a pickle here, have been really looking forward to getting back out there and am very concerned I have been made to look really shabby with this.

I have called the connection who did this, but he is yet to call back... Mind you if I have no luck next week, apparently I could be driving a white Mercedes or a yacht soon via Arbonne. ;-)

Any advice here will be very welcome please !

Oh God I wouldn't even think about it! It wasn't you...you're not responsible for his actions.

How has he contacted your network? Through your profile, or just looking through your connections and messaging them from his profile?

Are you sure his account wasn't hacked? That does seem tremendously unprofessional.

I'd consider a blanket, short, polite message to my contacts apologising for the junk mail.

Can you alter your settings so that your contacts are not able to use your mailing list in this way?

I am unclear how he's managed to do this? You cannot just spam other people's contacts on LinkedIn? Maybe he's gone through them one by one and stated you are a mutual friend? I'd ignore it, but speak to him, if he has done that it is totally unacceptable.

How did he manage to do this in any way other than by contacting each of them himself? I'm not sure how this could be considered as 'from you'?

How can you tell that all your contacts have been contacted? How did the person who told you there was an issue know that you were somehow involved? Did it look like you were forwarding his details through some sort of LinkedIn interface? If so I would contact LinkedIn as it is a breach of their terms and conditions. Like others I'm not sure how technically this was possible - I don't think that there is a way that I can send a message to all my contacts through LinkedIn itself. If I own a group I could pull all the group member's emails and send them a group email, but not throguh LinkedIn itself (you might be able to do it if you have an advanced/paid for membership I guess).

You need to change your security settings. In profile there's a setting called "who can see your connections". You should select "only you". This will mean any of your connections can only see those of yourconnections that they are already connected to ( ie only mutual ones).

I don't know if this applies (and I got laughed at for suggesting it might apply to some lawyers on here) but Linkedin advises against connecting to people you don't actually know.

Linkedin may deal with him for spamming.

If he has just looked at your connections and messaged them I wouldnt waste too much too much thought on it. It reflects on them and not you.

I occasionally get requests from people I don't know. I made the mistake once of accepting one from an older woman, i was trying to accept a different one but have sausage fingers. Within 5 mins got a SPAM reply about how she had recovered from cancer, gushing and thanking me for accepting the request and going on about the love of God. No request for oney or anything. Looked at the profile and judging from the connections it was some automated thing. Wierdest Linked in spam ever.

I doubt if it will reflect badly on you. Is it someone like a former colleague or customer that you value as a conection? If so maybe email them saying that you think they have been hacked. That way you are either doing them a favour or letting them know you don't approve of their behaviour without accusing.

If you dont need them as a contact unconnect.

If you dont actually know them unconnect.

I would't bother to contact everyone - it won't be obvious that their contact details came from you.

This is certainly possible - I get recruiters and others wanting to connect with me daily - they are actually just trying to mine my contacts.

Linkedin makes some of its functions available via web services, so just because you can't do something within the Linkedin screens, doesn't mean it can't be done, however you security settings will always apply.

If it can't be linked with you in anyway, then don't worry about it.

If he's used your name in some way, then I'd contact them, explain and apologise. Or do it at the face-to-face.

If he has used his profile, rather than yours, and you just mean that he's looked at who your contacts are and messaged them, just remove him. That's it.

If he's used your profile, it's a bit more complicated.

In either case, it's not a great idea to message everyone again to apologise, because LinkedIn encourages people to "mark" how useful the communications they get are, and if they mark it as spam, your profile rating lowers. Two rounds of messages allows a lot of potential for messages to be marked as spam, and your profile could entirely lose messaging functionality, or be put into moderation across the site.

If he's just contacted them without mentioning you, just brush it off.

Thanks so much everybody for your kind replies...

He managed to message each of my contacts from his own profile, though in his message has referred to me by name. I have now deleted him and changed privacy settings but the damage has been done. Will re-read all the replies later and think what of anything to do next.

Thanks oh lovely wise MN! ;-)