I get messages very frequently either from LinkedIn or some spammer or scammer pretending that someone I know, or who wants to get to know me, wants to “connect with me” on this particular networking device.
To all genuine folk, I just say that I am not interested in LinkedIn, and I only use Facebook sparingly and reluctantly. I can simply be contacted by e-mail, or if someone doesn’t have my e-mail address and wants to contact me, he or she can send a comment to this blog – and I will find his or her e-mail address (assuming it is a valid one) and will reply.
Simply don’t use LinkedIn because I won’t respond to any of those messages, genuine or false.
The Blue Flower 
Dear Father,
Many thanks for this note: perhaps it will alert the Linked In people that there is a little problem with their strategy: it seems that they are attempting to one of two things: by means of each person’s e-mail & Facebook ‘lists’, to bring all of us into a mutual admiration society: and/or, to herd cats! As I have forgotten the password for Linked In, I simply hit delete – especially when the message tells me that someone I have never met or heard of would like to ‘link’ with me!!!!
I keep getting messages from people on LinkedIn that I have upgraded my stuff. i delete these as I have never ‘upgraded’ anything. Bah humbug to them all.
In reality, the scammers and spammers get our e-mail addresses and make sites imitating LinkedIn and others. LinkedIn itself had been in trouble with the law for using spammer-like techniques. Just delete them all without a second thought.
PS to Fr. Anthony: Linkdin or not, I still love your stuiff. Keep ’em comin’, as they say!