I’m surprised this is the way it is, but we really need some way to tell if a message from a beacon is a private message or not.
As it stands, it’s completely impossible to know if it is a DM or not; until you look at Companion.
(at which point, if you don’t have companion on, not only can you not tell, but you also cannot respond).
I don’t think I have ever seen a DM from a beacon.
But isn’t it in red like DM from other riders?
To the best of my knowledge yes, DM is in red next to your name on the list.
General beacon messages appear in the middle of the screen in large text.
I use this on a daily basis.
Yeah normally a DM from other riders will be an orange box instead of white.
But with Beacons; it’s just like the normal text; just, in your face across the screen text, like anything else.
Which makes it impossible to know it’s a direct message.
Unless I’m blind, I mistake beacon DM’s as public messages… literally all the time. (Until I look down at my companion app and realized I’ve racked up multiple DM’s from our beacons haha [don’t worry, these are DM’s to handle the ride from beacons, not for getting into trouble!])
LOL.
I wanted to respond that you need to behave and you will get less DM’s. 
No I am interested to know why it is different for beacons than normal riders.
I’m fully aware I needed to clarify WHY this is a problem bahaha!
Even if it showed up as orange text on the side, would be completely acceptable I think; honestly any solution here is better than nothing though, that’s all I’m hoping for.
But yeah as it stands, it’s the same yellow name tag, so it’s likely some folks here have had DM’s coming their way and also never noticed!
(Which, does kind of present equally as big of a problem to those who are getting DM’s from beacons for being bad, and they might not notice they’re DM’s either.)
Well I’ve learnt something new. Never realise DM’s show the same as beacon messages.
Not so much an issue for me as a beacon but worth noting if i send several to the same person in succession it could be visually annoying.
Reasonable point, I’ll raise it.