Restricted by LinkedIn Because of Too Many I Don’t Know Invitation Responses? What Should You Do?

By Neal Schaffer

As I mentioned in my “What is a LinkedIn IDK – I Don’t Know This Person?” post, once you reach the LinkedIn IDK threshold of 5 IDKs, your account will be restricted in that you will need to enter an E-Mail address each time you try adding new people to your network.  If you are a LinkedIn LION actively using invites to build up your network by adding people, this IDK restriction is obviously a major inconvenience.  However, even with this restriction I was able to once again start adding new people to my network by following the rules that I laid out in the “How Do I Grow My LinkedIn Network?” post and further checking each profile for E-Mail addresses.  Although you are not supposed to include your E-Mail address in your profile, I have found that most LIONs and open networkers who accept invites usually are adding their address included somewhere in their profile.  In order to avoid automated spam spiders that exist in the Internet, some people like myself will write their E-Mail address as “name at domain dot com” (which would be translated to name@domain.com), but it will be easy to decipher.

How to Take the LinkedIn IDK Restriction Off Your Account and Being Adding New People to Your Network Again

If you would like the LinkedIn IDK restriction taken off your account in order to start adding new people to your network, as we all would, it does say on the screen to contact Customer Service and request doing so.  I did this and I found their Customer Service to be very quick and professional, and so long as I said I understood and that I would be more careful in the future, the restriction was released within a few days after my contacting them.  I was then able to continue adding new people to my LinkedIn network.

So if you get the IDK restriction placed on you as a result of adding people that are not receptive to receiving invitations, you can still continue inviting as I suggest above, but please wait a few days for Customer Service and be very polite and understanding when you request them to remove this IDK restriction.  Remember, we need to play on their rules as they are offering us the service.  Also remember that LinkedIn provides priority customer service to their paying customers, so don’t get frustrated if they don’t get back to you and help you with your restriction in 24 hours (unless, of course, you are a paying customer!).