If you’ve seen this message, you’re in for the LinkedIn time of your life. And, we don’t mean that in a good way.
I’ve seen TONS of articles on the many ways you can lose your LinkedIn Account (aka Termination), or innocently have it Suspended, High Restricted, Restricted, or Temporarily Restricted. But not a single step-by-step word on how to get back online quickly. There’s a reason for that. Working to UnRestrict your LinkedIn account is just a pain, so play nice.
The fastest steps I’ve found to UnRestrict your LinkedIn account follow:
- Open a ticket with the LinkedIn Help Center and try to learn the reason for the restriction
– Note: this does NOT require you login to LinkedIn.
- Figure out whatever you’ve done wrong
- Correct the problem ASAP
- Update your support ticket with the LinkedIn Help Center
- Wait 24 hours … (then re-engage LinkedIn again)
Now, these steps may seem obvious, but if you’ve never opened a ticket with the LinkedIn Help Center you’ll want to keep LinkedIn on the brain before you need to do it in a crunch. IOW – learn how before your ‘UnRestrict LinkedIn Account’ project begins.
Figuring out your wrongdoing and correcting it is often difficult mainly because the LinkedIn Level 1 ‘brain trust’ isn’t very forthcoming with information. Let’s just say that getting anything other than a canned answer out of them is clearly the exception (not the rule) when trying to UnRestrict a LinkedIn account.
IOW – on LinkedIn, you’re GUILTY until proven INNOCENT
Once you’ve figured out your alleged misdeed, and corrected it, LinkedIn will not take any action to UnRestrict your account until you perform this VERY IMPORTANT NEXT STEP.
You must update your LinkedIn Help Center ticket
We know it sounds a little too simple. However, failure to follow these steps quickly, and in this order, can result in weeks of delays. Most clients that come to us for help are reinstated within 48 hours, but that’s because we fully understand the UnRestrict process; we can usually fix most LinkedIn errors immediately; and we know the steps to follow.
All of our LinkedIn work includes free Account Reinstatement Assistance, so you can quickly get back to crushin LinkedIn group conversions in LinkedIn’s best groups.
We really hope this is helpful to any of you who have the displeasure of seeing that Account Restricted message. Innocent or not, it doesn’t feel good.
And, as LinkedIn continues to make ‘security enhancements’ to the platform without telling us (e.g.,Implementing Site Wide Auto Moderation – SWAM,Reducing Group Messaging Limit to 15 monthly,Closing their ‘Open API’,etc.), these notices will only become more commonplace.
In the meantime, remember to backup your LinkedIn account information just in case – see ‘Yesterday’s LinkedIn Outage‘. And checkout the excellent Up And Running With LinkedIn video tutorial that’s now FREE on Lynda.com.
Important 2015 Update – Access Denied
In 2014, LinkedIn began openly (P)robing, (Q)uestioning, (R)estricting, (S)uspending, and (T)erminating (PQRST) accounts based on IP address &/or local host (i.e., your PC).
This means account reinstatement from an IP &/or local host that has allegedly violated the LinkedIn User Agreement (aka: Terms of Service) became much more difficult in 2014.
Why should you care? Keep reading …
In the lab we’ve seen effective work-arounds that involve the use of virgin local hosts (aka: local machines never used to access LinkedIn before) to access unrestricted accounts. However, these work-arounds immediately fail once access to a restricted/suspended LinkedIn account is attempted.
IOW – if your account is restricted/suspended DO NOT ATTEMPT TO ACCESS IT FROM ANOTHER BROWSER OR PC. Doing so will only PQRST (restrict/suspend) that unit as well.
Once PQRST’ed, your only option (other than further breaching the LinkedIn User Agreement by opening multiple accounts) is to start from the beginning of this post, and attempt to get your account unrestricted the old-fashioned way. Again, if an IP or host has been PQRST’ed, any attempt to access any LinkedIn account from that unit is also denied until the original offending account is unrestricted. A minor detail, right? (Not!)
For the paranoid among us this means ‘Yes’, you might as well say LinkedIn-Bots will follow you … from one browser to another, from one IP address to another, &/or from one machine to another once you attempt to access a restricted/suspended LinkedIn account.
While not technically accurate, it sure seems this way. Kinda sucks We know, but at least you’ve been warned.
Remember …
Never share the LinkedIn password to your premium LinkedIn account unless you first verify the references of the person/business with whom you intend to share access.
– see Never Share Your LinkedIn Password
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