Recognizing Fraudulent Emails

Below is an example of a fraudulent email with various elements highlighted of what to look out for. 

From address - Find out who the email is really from

View the email headers and from address to identify the sender and find out where the message really originated. This email attempt uses a phony email address: “gfhggf@gmail.com”.

Distorted (stretched) logo

A phishing email may contain the Bethpage logo, but fraudulent emails may have an image that appears stretched or distorted.

Note the email greeting

Some emails may not address the member by name. Or there may be no name mentioned at all.

Strange wording / Misspelled company name

Another tactic used to bypass email filters. Examples in this email: “Beth Page” & “BethPage”.
Look for misspellings, grammatical or punctuation errors that can help identify phishing emails.

Check that the website you're accessing is legitimate

One common phishing technique is to include links in an email that look like they go to a legitimate website. Upon closer inspection, the link may actually take you to a website that has nothing to do with the company the email is pretending to be from, even though the resulting website may be designed to look exactly the same.

This link looks official, but notice what happens when the mouse curser rolls over it. The link’s destination points to a completely different website. Remember that you can always type a URL into your web browser instead of clicking a link.

On mobile devices you cannot "mouse over a link so extra care needs to be taken when clicking on email links. Always check the site that you clicking through to by verifying the website address in the address bar.

When we receive reports of fraudulent e-mails, Bethpage works aggressively with law enforcement agencies to investigate them. Here are some more recent examples: