Argthtjtr

Regarding the first question, "is it legal?" questions should always be posted on Law SE, not here.

As for your LinkedIn account, LinkedIn has the ability to change your email address associated with your account. It should be in your profile settings somewhere. You should change that.

Update your linkedin profile IMMEDIATELY, report possible fraud to them. Change the email from your work email to a private one.

Get a lawyer to send a cease and desist order to your previous employer. Ask your lawyer about identity theft and criminal impersonation charges.

Also ask your lawyer if you're permitted to reach out to the clients.

Company owns your email address (for example natasha.nice@yourcompany.com ) so they could theoretically re-use it, however impersonating someone (especially to obtain financial gain) is strictly forbidden in most civilized societies. For example , in US it amounts to a criminal fraud.

I advise you to write polite but firm letter to your former company, asking them to cease and desist with this behavior. If they don't respond contact legal professional in your area. In some jurisdictions you could even contact police.

As for LinkedIn, email with the proof of your identity (document issued by your government with the purpose of identification) is enough to close down fraudulent profile.

Congratulations on taking action to get free of a toxic environment!

A lot of people just put up with it.

This is advice for next time (for you) and for any others that might be considering this:

Set your out of office and your voice mail greeting just before you turn in your notice.

Don't say anything nasty towards the company, just a simple:

"I am no longer available.

You can contact [whoever] to get a new representative."

Replace [whoever] with your boss's name, email of the sales department, or anything generic (not a specific person unless that person is a manager/supervisor in charge of your work).

You'll note I said "just before" because if they walk you out, you may not have a chance to do it just after you turn in your notice.

While this isn't a direct answer to your question, I do think it is helpful enough to not just be a comment

(and it is my comment on another answer)

Bringing the following comment in to my answer:

Since any company will already have access to all own email accounts regardless of the particular situation the OP is in, this is pointless, since any company computer admin can legally reverse the change

No isn't pointless - you do this as part of a professional exit.

You are pointing the customer to the next person, so they get the best customer service.

You are not "pulling one over on the company in case they pretend you still work there" because, really... how many companies would do this? (I'm expecting it is a very small number)

If you are in a very high touch situation and know it would be traumatic for the customer to be handed over more than once - then maybe you shouldn't set your out of office and redo your voice mail prompt.

It isn't about screwing your current company, it is about helping your customers, and it is about YOU and YOUR professionalism (whether your company deserves it is not relevant)

Legality definitely matters, but even if illegal, are you willing to hire lawyers and sue? What will the legality do to shape your response?

To me the larger questions are around whether it’s ethical and more directly what’s the harm or value of what’s happening. You need to gauge whatever risk you are willing to undertake either by allowing them to pose as you or in fighting them. There are many facets here.

That said, even if it is somehow legal I consider this a form of identity theft in principle. If it were me, I would do or at minimum strongly consider the following actions:

• Change the email to which my LI account is linked;
  


• Inform my former employer they absolutely do not have my consent to pose as me;
  


• Suggest if they wish to retain the use of my existence, we should work out a suitable consulting arrangement;
  


• Inform them of my intent to do the following if they do not cease posing as me; and
  


• Contact my former client and vendor contacts/companies and alert them that it’s come to my attention that my former employer may be attempting to pose as me.

Edit To be clear, in no way am I suggesting the OP's personally affiliated account be shared. The consulting angle implies the OP actually is a consultant and is responding themselves...not licensing use of their name to others.

Your former employer (which might or might not be the boss -- the same would apply to anyone operating on their behalf) would be in breach of the LinkedIn User Agreement if anyone who wasn't you was to use your account.

Paragraph 8.2. sub-paragraph (a).

You could refer to that link as a response to the request.

I imagine you'd have to go see a lawyer. In terms of ownership, your employer "owns" your email address. So they are allowed to view the contents and/or make appropriate adjustments. There are certain protections but it depends on your country as far as what your employer may view and keep. It may also depend on your country but I would imagine so long as they are using it to direct their business then it is perfectly legal. Now if they are using it to pretend to be you by protective reasons (doctor, lawyer, psychiatrist, bank login, etc) then no, that would definitely not be legal.

Key reason you should not be signing up for LinkedIn with your work account that is not work related. Hopefully you did not do anything important with the account or contacted anyone non-work related. Definitely update any email addresses on various sites, and be sure to contact anyone not related to work that your email has changed.

While they can still use your work email since it belongs to the company they probably cannot ask your coworkers to impersonate you. I would seek the advice of a lawyer immediately.

As for your Linkedln profile, once again if you created it with your work email they have control of this account as well. You do not need to give them your login information as they can simply reset it with the email that they have control over.

Regardless, seek legal advice regarding the company impersonating you.

If you have the contact information for your former clients, you can reach out to them and let them know you quit the company and that any emails appearing to come from yourself are not actually from yourself.

It’s probably Ok to keep using your email address. There may be some problems: if you were highly experienced and valued by customers, and you are replaced by someone much less competent, and customers only find out when they are asked to pay for shoddy work performed under your name, that could be a problem. If your reputation suffers, that could be a problem. If your new employers reputation suffers because it looks like their best man is not an employee but working for more than one company, that would be a problem.

So it’s not the reusing of the email address that causes them legal problems, but any consequences.

Is this legal?

You don't need to worry. Like many other things, company email address is one of the company-provided resources that is owned by the company and made available to you for use. The moment your employment comes to an end with the organization, your access should be ceased. Going further, what happens to your account (or related information), is not your concern. Company can chose to keep the account active but remove ALL access to it, they can chose to destroy the account information - up to the company policy.

What should I do?

I'll list down three things, which are needed right now:

1. 
   

   Change your email address associated with your LinkedIn profile.

   
   
   

   -- This way, your boss cannot make any (false) claims to "own" the account, by any means.

   
   


2. 
   

   Ask your boss for a written request to reveal your password (yes, without you providing your password, they should not be able to access it)

   
   
   

   -- If you chose to response, don't provide the password, and loop higher-ups and infosec team (if you have one) in loop. This should teach the people asking for password the lesson they need.

   
   


3. 
   

   Make sure you don't have any open-ended communications before your leave, transfer the ownership of the ongoing action items to your colleagues / superiors.

   
   
   

   -- If there is no ownership on you, anyone pretending to be "you" to get the work, billing or whatever, will be clearly crossing the line, into the legal jurisdiction (if need be).

   
   

This way, you can disassociate yourself from any concerns / claims about unauthorized actions, from your end.

Note: If they access your accounts without you providing the password, you need not be worried, you're not responsible anyways.

Do you still have access to your work email? You should have sent clients a "Dear John" letter when you quit.

Currently you can only update your LinkedIn profile to put past in the past.

Regarding LinkedIn -- it's your account and I would suggest changing the email. It's linked to the personal one. If you don't have one now, there are lots of free ones.