AQHA- Recognizing Email Scams

AQHA Publicity

The American Quarter Horse Association and American Quarter Horse Foundation are dedicated to protecting the privacy of AQHA members and the Foundation’s donors.

We invest in ensuring that your personal information is secure. However, with any business or organization, individuals might try to impersonate AQHA or the Foundation to access your account information or to ask you to donate to causes that are not associated with the Foundation.

Phishing scams have advanced to be harder to identify in recent years. Here are some key signs that can help you identify a scam:

• The email name does not match the name used in the email address.
• The text of the email is cryptic and very simple.
• The email text includes a link to click on.
• Emails from AQHA and the Foundation are sent from .ORG or .NET email addresses. If you receive an email from a .COM email address, it is a scam.
• The Foundation will never solicit funds for a third-party fundraising effort through sites like GoFundMe or Kickstarter. Valid Foundation fundraising efforts will only direct you back to online giving pages that are connected to AQHA.com.
• The Foundation will not request that gift or gaming cards be purchased.
• The Foundation raises money for specific program areas, including equine research, scholarships, equine-assisted activities and therapies, the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame & Museum, and general Foundation operations.
• The Foundation also gives you the opportunity to support disaster relief and the AQHA Professional Horsemen’s Crisis Fund. If you receive a fundraising request that is not connected to these program areas, it is likely that it did not come from the Foundation.
• The Association and Foundation take pride in proofing every message that is sent from us to our members, donors and customers, so if the message has several mistakes in spelling and grammar or is oddly worded, it is likely a scam.
• We try to freshen up our marketing collateral every few years, but we are true to our brand. If you receive a message that looks significantly different from other messages you’ve received from AQHA or the Foundation, it is a scam.
  AQHA and the Foundation will never send a message that threatens you or has a sense of urgency.
• AQHA or the Foundation will not send you a message that requests personal information, like a credit card number or account password.

Read more from the Federal Trade Commission about potential scams and how to protect yourself from becoming a victim to fraudulent emails, texts or copycat websites.

To protect your information, here are some suggested guidelines:

• If an email looks in any way not right, treat it like it is bad no matter who sent it.
• If you want to verify the intent, call or text the sender – do not reply to the email.
• Never click on anything in an email unless you are 100% certain.
• Delete the email, if bad, by holding down the shift key and delete.
• If the sender is wholly unknown to you, block the sender in Outlook and blacklist them.
• For more information on how to protect your information from scams, visit the AQHA Privacy Information page.

If you receive a suspicious message, please contact us at 806-376-4811 or use our contact form. Don’t click on the email or website until you’ve contacted us. Our team will confirm if the message is a scam. If it is a scam, we will investigate it to prevent other members from becoming subject to the scam.

News and information is a service of the American Quarter Horse Association. For more news and information, follow @AQHA on Twitter and visit www.aqha.com/news.