Natalie Calvert, the founder of HuddleCX, has taken on LinkedIn after a near six-month struggle to become verified on the global professional networking platform.
Calvert (pictured), whose professional name differs from her legal name, has been trying to add a verification badge to her profile since launching her latest venture in 2025, but the automated system LinkedIn uses to handle such requests cannot make provisions for those who have a different legal and professional name. The journey requires users upload a government issued ID, however, the system does not accept marriage certificates, deed polls, or other documentation that would prove a user is who they claim to be, but use a professional name that differs to the one on their current government-issued ID.
As highlighted by those who have rallied to support Calvert, this excludes millions from verifying their profiles, including people who have changed their names due to marriage – or divorce – people who have a culturally adapted name, people who are undergoing gender reassignment, and people who use a different professional name for safety reasons.
According to LinkedIn, verified members “naturally see 60 percent more profile views and 50 percent more engagement on average”.
The scale of LinkedIn’s verification flaw
Last week, Calvert went public with her struggle in a post that tagged LinkedIn and as of April 1, had received more than 40,000 impressions, 600 reactions, and 300 reposts – despite the lack of verification.
In the post, Calvert explained she has been trying to navigate LinkedIn’s automated verification journey for six months, but that it is designed in a way that locks millions out of the benefits verification promises.
Her company, HuddleCX, launched in August 2025 and having a verified LinkedIn profile was critical to its visibility. “Unverified accounts get less reach. Fewer impressions. Content that doesn't travel. It has honestly brought me to tears,” Calvert wrote.
Through a service experience Calvert described as “honestly some of the worst I have ever experienced”, she was given two options: include both surnames on the profile with one in brackets, which she wrote would “destroy your personal brand and identity”, or get a notarized affidavit and cover the cost.
“That's a design flaw. Not an oversight. A flaw,” her post read.
Laying bare the figures, she explained to her followers: “The impact of this is simply staggering: 1.3 billion LinkedIn users globally. 43 percent are women. Even a conservative estimate suggests over 50 million women worldwide have a passport name different to their professional name. 50 million women. Quietly penalized by an algorithm. Every single day. In the UK alone – two million. In the USA – 11 million. Most of them don't even know it. And what makes it even worse. LinkedIn knows. And doesn't even care.”
She asked her followers to share the post “for every female professional who built a career under a name that doesn't match their passport and has no idea the algorithm is quietly working against them”.
The problem with over-automated customer journeys
The issues highlighted by Calvert are not limited to the verification process, they also highlight how over-automation that does not account for exceptions can quickly cost more than it saves, particularly when applied to important or sensitive customer journeys, such as proving identity.
Automation is essential to delivering efficient experiences at scale and helps many organizations improve processes and outcomes, as well as helping to reduce costs. In 2026, CX Network’s annual research into the state of CX found automation to be a top three investment priority for 22 percent of practitioners. Elsewhere in the results, 27 percent said they are using generative or agentic AI to automate complaint resolution. However, all automated journeys must still have human oversight and alternative journey paths, and cases such as this demonstrate why.
Since posting her story last week, Calvert has received a response from LinkedIn's Executive Escalations teams, which acknowledged and apologized for her experience and confirmed her LinkedIn Premium subscription for the last six months would be reimbursed. Calvert was asked to submit a photo of a valid government-issued ID and a document that shows both her maiden and married names to progress her verification.
However, the response also confirmed that the information she was given about requiring an affidavit was incorrect and the ticket was closed soon after.
Speaking to CX Network, Calvert said: “It’s likely that tens of millions of professional women have tried to be verified. They followed the process. And the system said no. Not because they are unknown. Not because they lack credibility. But because the system was not designed with them in mind.
“What makes this more troubling is that the failure didn’t stop at the product. It extended into the service experience. When a platform like LinkedIn cannot resolve a verification issue with clarity, consistency and empathy, it stops being a technical problem and becomes a leadership one,” she continued.
Calvert added: “Think about what that quietly costs. The job that went to someone else. The speaking opportunity that never landed. The content that didn’t travel. The voice that was smaller than it should have been. LinkedIn’s own data shows verified users receive around 60 percent more profile views. That isn’t a badge. That’s visibility. That’s opportunity. That’s a career.
"In CX we spend our careers fixing broken journeys. This is one of them. The data exists. The human cost is clear. The fix is entirely within reach."
She concluded: “The question now is simple: will the leadership decision be made to fix it?”