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AREC Warns Licensees of Phishing Attempt

Tuesday, June 23, 2020

AREC was notified this afternoon that several licensees have received a suspicious-looking email from an account posing as “Arkansas real estate commission”. The email states “New Profile Validation Required” and may bear the subject line “Arkansas real estate license validation”. The email goes on to urge licensees to click a link and validate their profile, warning that a failure to do so might cause a delay in their next license renewal.

This e-mail is NOT from the Arkansas Real Estate Commission. It is a phishing attempt and licensees should not consider it in any way valid. A few tips to help you spot and steer clear of messages such as these are:

-Always check the sender’s actual email address, not just their display name. You may have to hover over the sender’s display name or expand the header to see the real address, but you’ll be glad you looked. If the email address is unfamiliar, an endless string of letters and numbers, or in any way suspicious, be on guard. Messages from AREC will come from the arkansas.gov domain.

-Look out for incorrect grammar, misspellings and random formatting. In this particular email, “June” and “Arkansas Real Estate Commission” were not properly capitalized, in addition to several other grammar and syntax errors.

-Beware the scare tactic. In this message, licensees are warned that failure to validate their profiles may cause a delay in their next license renewal. If you know us at all, you know we live for on-time license renewals and have zero interest whatsoever in delaying that process for licensees.

-When in doubt, talk it out. If you’re not sure whether a message is from us, give us a call and we’ll be glad to let you know.

Thank you to the licensees who alerted AREC to this situation. We hope you are all safe and well.

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