I wish I didn’t have to write this because Closely does do what it says.

But use this app and you risk getting your LinkedIn account shut down.

2 months ago, I would have said Closely’s great! Try it! I followed the instructions, started in warmup mode, kept my message short and not salesy, and made connections. First I was sending an invite with an auto-follow-up, but the follow-ups seemed unnatural. I dropped them and used Closely only for the connection request.

It was humming along for ~2 months. Then … Account Restricted. Warning message about suspicious usage patterns that looks like I’m using a tool.

I have been using LinkedIn since 2006. Never had this.

I admin multiple company accounts, have 1,000+ connections.

The first restriction was a few hours, but it made me nervous. I told Closely, who inspected my simple setup and told me to use warm-up mode again. I hesitated since LI’s so important to my business, but I did what they said. Reconnected.

About 2 weeks later… Account Restricted. Same message. This time about half a day.

Again I wrote Closely. They said they’d look into it. Two days later they said to try 3 to 5 connections/day. They sent me a link to generic templates much worse than the short, personal message I was using. I did not reconnect my LI account with Closely. I can send 3 to 5 connection requests a day manually. I don’t need a pricey app for it.

I sent 0 new invites. I used LinkedIn normally, communicating with connections, responding to feed posts, etc.

1 week later… Account Restricted. Same message but with a warning that I could be permanently restricted. This time I was shut down for 2 days, which cost me.

I completely deleted my LI info from Closely. And I signed up for Sales Explorer so at east I’ll be able to get LI customer support if they shut me down.

The automation is smooth, and I do believe Closely sends out invites the way it says it does. The CSV download also works great. The personalization and automation work great. But I also think the Closely people know more than they let on. Naturally, though, they can’t control LinkedIn. I can’t blame them for that and for trying to sell an effective product and make money.

Probably, more people rejected my remaining requests. When you get enough of those, along with similar messages being sent out at a regular pace, no matter how much the app “tries” to emulate normal usage, LI catches on to it. And LI is increasingly acting like other behemoth sites and simply shutting the user down, no questions asked, no chance for appeal.

Between shutdowns 2 and 3, there were pending requests. Perhaps some declined me, though I got new connections as well, happy that I wrote them.

Use this app with great caution, no matter how “safe” it says it is.

YOU COULD GET SHUT DOWN. I used it very lightly, with an established account, and I got shut down 3 times in a couple of months. I even got restricted when I wasn’t actively using the app.

Learn from me.