I should preface this article by saying that of the social networks, we like LinkedIn best. They don't try to get ahold of information about you they shouldn't have and they give the account owner very good granular control of what appears in his or her account. On the other hand, sometimes one wants to close an account. And it should be easy.
How can one quickly and easily delete one's LinkedIn account? It turns out nohow.
First, it’s almost impossible to do it without seeking out very detailed documentation. Fortunately you have arrived at the right place.
The received wisdom is that you have to open up a customer support ticket to close your LinkedIn account. That’s no longer the case. Possibly thanks to the direct pressure that celebrity programmer (can a programmer be a celebrity?) David Heinemeier Hansson brought to bear.
In the second round of Heinemeier Hansson’s LinkedIn let me go hell, Heinemeier Hansson wrote:
But two people from LinkedIn has now been in touch and hopefully we can work this out. I’ll try my best to get the quit-account operation to be automatic, not manual. That’s the big problem.
But it’s still not easy.
You have to search for the cancel function deep in the help profiles. What brings it up is “delete profile” here – http://linkedin.custhelp.com/
Once you are there here are the instructions:
Close an account and remove your profile from LinkedIn by completing the following steps:
Log into the account you wish to close.
Click on ‘Account & Settings’ found at the top of the home page.
Click on ‘Close Your Account’ under Personal Information.
Select a reason for closing your account.
Click on ‘Continue’.
Members should only have one LinkedIn account. Multiple accounts can prevent the ability to accept an Invitation. Closing additional accounts should resolve this dilemma. Prior to closing any secondary accounts:
Inventory all connections and identify any that may be missing from the primary account you wish to keep.
Send Invitations to those connections missing from the primary account.
Update any profile information that maybe on other account profiles.
Note: Once the account is closed, a user will no longer have access to the account or the contact information. If an account is closed in error, it can be reopened by contacting Customer Service. LinkedIn will be happy to re-open your account if you can provide a confirmed primary or secondary email address tied to that account. However, LinkedIn does not have the ability to restore any pending invitations or sent recommendations on a re-opened account.
Not so easy. If you are managing any groups you have to delete those too.
You have to go through about six screens to get this done.
One of my clients has multiple profiles. The emails that those profiles were created under are long gone. Let’s see how long it takes LinkedIn to actually respond.
Update: out of three duplicate profiles:
- I found the email and removed the account
- Wonder of wonders LinkedIn removed this one based on my ticket (logged in as my client from his main account)
- This one (a Private profile but certainly my client) is still there.
God help you if you actually sign up for their paid service. Apparently they will not allow you allow to terminate at all in that case. One poor sod had to cancel his credit card to get off paid LinkedIn:
I tried to cancel my $20/month subscription with LinkedIn. They never responded to emails and charged me for months until I finally found a way to stop the billing. Seriously this worked.
Cancel or report your credit card lost or stolen with the number you used for LinkedIn. no new charges occurred after that. And my account was finally set back to the basic status no more $20 fees.
What’s worse, for a business which takes money for its services, LinkedIn does not answer its telephone. Here’s the number in case you need it: if anyone comes across an extension which actually works you can post it and I will send anyone who subscribes here that info. Posting it on the open web would probably lead to the extension being disabled within a few weeks.
Speaking of which, LinkedIn’s pricing is absurd – $400/year for an address book. That’s one pricey piece of software. We pay $100/month for our online accounting package and something similar for project management but there are ten to forty users using those services day in and day out.
Epilogue
With the help of a senior customer service manager (I think the head of the whole shooting works) we were finally able to get some duplicate accounts deleted/merged. It was far too painful and took a matter of weeks. It necessitated giving false information to LinkedIn (if we didn't give false information they wouldn't help us), even though they knew the information was false.
In fairness to LinkedIn, there are people manning support and in extreme cases they are reachable. Which is better than Google (only place you can contact is AdWords, as they are taking your money) and probably Facebook (Facebook is so invasive we won't use it at all).
Linked In will spam you to death: they never release email addresses
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i closed my linkedin account the free one but it is still on the web and they said it was suppose to be removed from search engines
Hi Cookie,
It will take a few weeks/months/years for the search engines to drop the deleted page. The important thing on your end is to check that the URLs in the search engine go to a 404 page or a blank page so that the old page will eventually be dropped. If the page is just hidden inside the internal database but exists on the web still (if you know the address), Google will probably not drop it, at least not any time soon.
I joined this network and got pop up menu from a dating site Lexa.nl (the Dutch TV program Radar made a topic about them, nasty stuff I cant get it away, till now.
so I closed my linkedin account, the next day it was still active with pictures and all
I edited every field in my profile with “Not Applicable”, Including my name, prior to deleting the account. Should it persist, it shouldn’t be autolinked to pipl or whatever.
closed my linkedin account the free one but it is still on the web
Thank you for the article. I was very useful. If I had known before, I would not start to pay for an account. I myself had a problem to fill in the right info. I’m going to change my job so I tried to change info about me and I could not. And they do not allow to set info if you are a freelance, they need a web address of the company.
I wonder if anybody found themselves a job through LinkedIn or established good professional contacts?
Hi Svetlana,
I’m sure some people have found work through LinkedIn. It’s more a place to reconnect with past contacts which might lead to work offers.
LinkedIn is kind of a Facebook for grownups.
I’m not sure if we’ve had direct inquiries and deals from LinkedIn but we definitely have had from Twitter.
I have found it a mission to turn off the incessant emails I get every day – which my Thunderbird email client advises me are a scam!
I can’t login because it won’t recognize my email provider. I’m pissed off. It wants all my email contacts to do anything. I’m not a social website type and don’t want this at all. It wasn’t like this when I created this account 5 or so years ago. All I wanted to do was change my email address but all I get is BS. They are evil.
Don
Thank you so much for this advertisement. I have been trying to shut down the LinkedIN or StalkedIN site for days. It has completely messed up my life being on that site.
Thanks again.
they are all about data mining. from the faggots at facebook, to spoke.com, and this gay site. I dont know anyone who has gained employment by using one of these sites. stick with what works. it’s called a phone, a resume, etc. it’s bad enough that potential employers have your job history, I for one do not want it out for the world to see. it is not anyones business.
for me is Wikipedia and facebook enough. NO INTEREST with Link in
Sorry it is not my thing !!!!I don`t like head hunting!!!!!!
Please dont`t show my mail account Thanks!!
Hi Ulrike,
That’s funny. I loathe Facebook (I wouldn’t trust Mark Zuckerberg with a $20 loan, let alone all my personal data) but have been reasonably happy with LinkedIn which has allowed me to reconnect with a lot of wonderful people from the past.
You missed out on a very important part. You cannot delete a company !
Who created the CON ARTIST stuff “linkedin” ?
Help them to hide in the darkest corner on the planet, because -
I am prepared to rip these scam-bags into bits and pieces in front of any court, anywhere in the world!
(I am not updated, but, when did they partner with Mark Zuckerberg?)
Hi
I want to remove my primary mail id from Linkedin.Please suggest me as soon as possible.I am very confused.
Thanks
Jitender
Hi Jitender,
LinkedIn will not give up your primary email address. They will keep mailing you until you die.
It’s unbelievable. Spammers.
I used to have a high opinion of LinkedIn and was quite active, but with the spam filled groups and the non-stop spamming of users, I’ve almost stopped using LinkedIn.
Pay back time !!! My brother ordered an online accounting package and yearly subsciption from these muppets in Feb 2011, We went ballistic as hes under age to undertake any transactions. We contacted the bank and they put an SO4 on the transaction as it was illegal because of his age.
Good part is we are now getting money paid into our account every mth from a foreign bank and have recieved to date 6 times what their fees were and it still keeps rolling in.
y bank seem to think its a reverse DD which has been misinterpreted by their bank and said I should let them know – but guess what, and heres the good bit – YOU CANT SPEAK OR CONTACT ANYONE AT LINKED IN – he-he-he.
I find Linkedin useless. Please tell me hyow to change a business account with the same email, or how to close this account.
Thank you
Eric
Thanks this worked a treat!!
Please remove my Linkedin account completely. D. Mark.
I do not have an account in the first place. All I want to do is unsubscribe so I do not receive any further emails from Linkedin.
Ray
linkedin have an office in london but there no details of a phone number not even in google ??
i deleted my account but profile still could be see. is there any say to delete my profile info?
Thanks for the instructions, I’ve been meaning to get rid of my duplicate acct for some time now.
This is a worthless company…………boycott them folks……..In Ole Wild West we Just shot the sonofbitches…….and that what the internet has become.
I dont have time to see my account . hence kindly close my account.
Thanks for your help on this. You are right it would be next to impossible without your map.
please close my account
Please uninstall my account and profile
Please close my linkedin account
THANK YOU for this article!
Linked In was absolutely useless to me. It offered no benefit except for others who wanted more info on me (i.e. quasi stalkers).
LOL @ people here asking YOU to close their accounts. Kinda makes you wonder how they managed to set up a profile in the first place.
Thanks again
Thank u….
Please cancel my account with linkedin and delete my profile. I did not ask for this account and do not wish to have it!!!!!!!!
I’s wrongly advised by a friend of mine to open a linkedin accout. But immediately I found out that it is only to kill my time. So, I’m interested to delete my account.
Very complicated to close the account – one has to rummage around – there are some changes – I just stumbled into it after many blind alleys. I was getting very tired of seemingly random invites.
I don`t have any account or to be a member at all with Linkedin.I had never given you my paticulars.I don`t want to receive any more e-mails from you or face book.I want you to delete any least detail of me.I want to unsubscribe completely from you.
I never asked to be linked to Linkedin and I want my name and profile removed. I do not want to receive any more emails. How can I get my email address removed? I did not set up an account or profile. H E L P !!!!!!!!!
More than two years old and still helpful. Thank you.
please help me! i cannot close this account and need someone to get me out of this – it is sending messages non-stop to all my friends who can’t stand the emails!
please delete me frome linkedin!
please unsubscribe my account with twoo
i already deleted my account in LinkedIn but still existing.. i still saw my profile in Google.i dont want to publish my profile in public….
How do I get off twoo? I was sent an invitation from a friend and thought it was like linked in and filled out stuff but now cant work out how to get off??
No Tel.#, no contact form… in Germany (at least!) illegal!
Dont give them Your details!!!
You´l never get them back!
Linkedin never existed… NO: it never should have been existing!
Kindly Remove my linkin account permanatly from the web site
i wat to unsubscribe, why can’t this be possile
Cancel my account w/Linkedin as soon as possible. I got in by mistake and i don’t know how. Please confirm.
Kindly Remove my linkin account permanatly from the web site
Just closed my Linkedin account – about 10 hours after opening it. In those few hours I have had an unbelievable amount of spam email.
Closing wasn’t that hard – they have a Help section and it really does give advice on how to close the account.
Hi Alex,
Thanks for your report.
Please let us know if the email spam stops once you close your account. It would be great if you then tried to reopen the account on that same email?
* Does LinkedIn hold on to your data and give it back to you?
* Or do they hold on to your data and not give it back to you?
* Or do they completely delete your data?
If you are reoffered your profile it would suggest LinkedIn hold on to your data but give it back to you.
If you are not allowed to open up a profile on that email address, it would suggest LinkedIn is holding onto your data but not giving it back to you.
If you are offered the chance to keep a new account with no suggestion of previous registration, it’s likely that LinkedIn have effectively (at least within the active system), deleted your profile.
PLEASE KINDLY REMOVE MY LINKIN ACCOUNT PERMANATLY
FROM THE WEB SITE
PLS NO MORE OF THE MY SPACES! I NEED NO MORE SPACES!
I just deleted my only LinkedIn account, according to Alec’s instruction. Then I tried to sign in 5 minutes afterwards. The result is: I can not sign in with my old data (email and password) any more. They keep sending me info that my email address or password are wrong.
But, of course, when I Google my name all data are still there. A nightmare!!!
Alec wrote: “They will keep mailing you until you die”.
I would add: “Even a very long time after we all die, they will still keep our data visible to the public on their sites”.
My proposal:
Someone of you guys (IT experts) could earn a lot of money by developing a way (system /procedure/special software/application – whatever) and helping us ordinary people to get out (rid) of the places (pages) like LinkedIn.
It could become a new profession!
Hi Ann,
Thanks for the detailed info. Please keep us posted if LinkedIn do take your profile down. It may take a day or two. The page itself will stay in Google for at least a couple of months (you don’t have rights to have Google de-index a page, LinkedIn would have to make that request themselves).
If not, sending LinkedIn a registered letter in legal form might smarten them up. Be aware of the kind of miscreants you are dealing with in the person of Reid Hoffman and any of his associated companies.
Great suggestion. The simple approach is to empty your account of all but your name and a single job description before closing it.
Any automate service, Facebook and LinkedIn can (and have) just blocked.
Keep up the good fight! And don’t forget to have a laugh or two at the people actually trusting their data to these self-interested blackguards.
Pingback: LinkedIn: Full profiles for 3rd-degree connections are available only to premium account holders.
ridiculous post. closing is easy. what’s the bfd?
I WOULD LIKE TO HAVE LINKEDIN REMOVED I DO NOT HAVE ANY USE OF IT PLEASE TELL WHAT TO DO
lcordesius at hotmail.com
kindly de link me from linked in.
i do not want to continue in linked in.
thank you,
regards.
I misunderstood when I was giving my retirement information. I gave my husband’s business and I did not give my pkace of employment. I do not need Linkedin
PLEASE CLOSE MY ACCOUNT AND DELETE MY PROFILE COMPLETELY!!!!!!!!
I’ve receiving mails since 2009!!!!
P L E A S E !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Can you please close my LinkedIn account?
Delete my account/profile please.
I want my information dropped from LinkedIN.
No more. I’ve tried over and over to do this and it just will not go away.
I think it’s a scam and I’m tired of it.
I will find out who to write if I have to start from the top and work my way down. The FCC should be told of this.
I just tried to delete my account. Wow. These guys just confirmed for me why I despise these types of services that collect your personal info and remove your ability to control it. That being said, I just made some adjustments to my account. I removed all connections, groups, job info and companies I was following. I then created a bogus email account so that I could add it to the account as my primary and then deleted my legitimate email so that I wouldnt continue to get harrassed with updates and emails. It really is ridiculous that one should have to go through all of this trouble to remove their own info from such a site.
Hi “Name”,
Thanks for sharing your steps for destroying your account. Not a bad approach. I wouldn’t be surprised if LinkedIn have an archive system which will restore your account to its previous state (once they see the bouncing email) and they start to mail you again in a year.
But maybe LinkedIn don’t have that automated archive restore and you’ve found the right away to really wrench your data freee.
how to remove my linkedin account (personel details)in search engines
Clear me off any and all registers you may have. Thank you
please cancel linkedin
I do not have a business.
Thx.. Correct info and quick and easy, I am out :)
after they have sent friendship invitations in my name,
attack me with email,
bothering me and more…
you have saved me with that info.
Thanks
I’m not interested to running this account. Please delete it.
Please remove my profile from this company i am no longer with this company. left this company for a new a position.
Thank you.
I am not interested any more please delete
I just received from Linkedin” ” Do you know…. First my sister’s name. then the names of two of my friends….”
How in hell, did they get those names? I have regular e-mail contact with those people, so they must have a way to get into MY data, without MY permission !!
I object very much to such invasiveness. Isn’t it illegal somehow ?
If at all possible I want to get rid of such brazen scum.
Dear Sir, Please delete my account! I have retired and no longer need access to Lindeklin. Thank You for your consideration! Sincerely, Pam Case
I would like to delete my account please.
Please delete my account. We’ve had many enquiries as to whether Linkedin is genuine, or whether it is a scam. It has wasted a lot of time.
Please cancel my connection with it as soon as possible.
Thank you very much.
I did not set up a LinkedIn account and I better not get charged
I opened this account by mistake I have no need for it I don’t have a clue on how to use it and would appreciate it if it gets deleted thanks Steve
I want to close my LinkedIn account
Thanks guy’s! Closed my account in mere minutes. I’m retired and just don’t need this type of account. I really appreciate it!
I never opened an LinkedIn account yet I am listed through them on the Internet. How do I get them to stop? Info is inaccurate to boot.
Hi Pat,
Rush to get the dummy account closed down. Evildoers can impersonate you and cause all kinds of trouble for you in your professional and even personal life.
I’ve sent you a working LinkedIn telephone number. Please write back about how it goes.
Wtf delete my account pronto or I will get an attorney