‘You can suck my d***, sweetheart’: Woman shares the ‘vulgar and awful’ message she got from a fellow professional on LinkedIn
The trainee accountant received the message after asking about part-time work
A TRAINEE accountant who received a lewd message on LinkedIn has shamed an employee after her post highlighting the harassment went viral.
19-year-old Kayley White was on the professional networking site advertising jobs at her company, and asked if anyone knew of any part-time weekend work.
But the teenager was disgusted to receive a "vulgar and awful" message in response from the account of an employee at another firm - which read: "You can suck my d*** any time you like sweetheart."
Kayley posted a screenshot of the message on LinkedIn, tagging the company the man works for and commenting "very professional." It has since been viewed more than 7,400 times.
The message appeared to have been sent by a Linkedln account belonging to Scott Fisher, a property broker at Flambard Williams Limited.
However, it was later claimed the message had been sent by an "ex-colleague", who had his password and accessed his account.
Kayley from Maidenhead, Berkshire, said she wanted to promote awareness of the "rude and suggestive messages women receive on a daily basis from men."
The teen, who works for financial management company Fisco based in Winnersh, Wokingham, explained: "I put up a post saying we have two new vacancies please message me for details.
"When I posted it I didn't expect such a vulgar and awful message in response. It made me feel sick.
"I clicked on the guy's account it came from and it had his company details and everything.
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She added: "I've had people in the past say stuff like 'I like your picture', but never anything like this. This is just black and white - it's disgusting.
"Someone wouldn't walk past me in the street and say something like this, so what makes them think they can do it on LinkedIn?
"Maybe this will make people think twice about sending these kind of messages."
Kayley has said that the incident has now put her off using LinkedIn in the future, but she is glad she made the comment public.
She said: "I wanted to be one of the women who stand up for themselves.
"I know its not just me who receives stuff like this - its women across the world.
"I feel awful for all girls who receive this on a daily basis."
However, unfortunately, the reaction to Kayley's decision to publicly call out the man hasn't been completely positive - with some users arguing it's unfair to tarnish the man's reputation.
She said: "Nine out of 10 of the comments were supporting me, but some people said I was airing out my dirty laundry."
Christopher Whetstone, a director at the Flambard company in Chelmsford, Essex, contacted Kayley to apologise about what had happened and said there was an ongoing investigation into the matter.
He said: ";We have heard of the accusation. All I can say is it is being investigated.
"It was not him as far as we are aware, we logged on to his computer and it was not done from his work computer or his phone.
"It did not happen from any computer in this office or his phone.
"The next step in this investigation is to find out how it happened.
"We are taking action. It's an ongoing investigation.
"I said sorry for any offence caused. Regardless of us, I apologised for the offence caused.
"At any company messages like this will not be tolerated.
"I will not comment on anyone individually but like I said, it was not sent from any computer here.
"He voluntary gave up his phone. He said 'please go down it and check it'.
"And of course, it was not just me that checked it, we got someone in who checked his phone and computers."