AVANT Spammed Me
Protect Your Credit and Don’t Fall For it
I take my credit very seriously, I always have and I always will. That’s why I was taken by surprise when I saw that Avant spammed me.
The unsolicited email from Avant read, “Dear Ray,
Thank you for choosing Avant.
In order to improve the satisfaction of our customers, we have partnered with Trustpilot to collect customer reviews.
We’d appreciate it if you could leave us a review- good, bad, or otherwise. It’ll only take a minute!
Thanks for your time.”
The Problem
The problem is — and it’s a big one — I didn’t choose them.
I’d never even heard of Avant before.
After reading that email my mind immediately began racing.
I thought, “Oh my God — someone’s stolen my identity. Someone has opened an account in my name.”
It’s not impossible. After all, there have been enough hacks and data breaches that most of my private information is probably available online and ready to be sold to the highest bidder on the Dark Web.
So after my initial panic subsided, I decided to take action. I needed to find out who exactly Avant was and I needed to verify if a fraudulent account was actually opened under my name.
To my surprise, I learned very quickly that there was no fraudulent account and that Avant still had never done business with me, or anyone pretending to be me.
So what gives?
Who is Avant?
After conducting my quick little bout of research, I learned that Avant is in fact a legitimate FinTech company that was founded in 2012; they provide loans and credit cards to consumers.
I took note that despite being a relatively young company, in 2019 they had already come under fire from the FTC. Avant eventually agreed to a 3.85 million dollar settlement due to numerous law violations and deceptive practices in the past.
Cutting corners and breaking the law to get what they want seems to be a cornerstone of Avant’s business plan.
In this case, willfully sending misleading emails and potentially violating the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 just seems to be another nefarious business practice of theirs.
Definition of Spam
According to Merriam-Webster, spam is considered “unsolicited usually commercial messages (such as emails, text messages, or Internet postings) sent to a large number of recipients or posted in a large number of places”.
This definition falls exactly in line with what I and thousands of other just experienced. I’m calling it, It’s SPAM.
Why Would They Do This?
On the surface, this email may appear as a genuine mistake. But then again, how did they get my information in the first place?
It wasn’t until I went to Trustpilot and started reading some of the most recent reviews that I got a better idea of what was going on.
Note: I did not click the link in the email. Instead, I opened a new window and googled "Trustpilot" to find the legitimate site. It's very important to never click links in emails sent from people or businesses that you are unfamiliar with. Even if it looks legitimate, always type in the URL of the site you are looking for yourself or use a reputable search engine instead.
One comment in particular pointed out that Avant may be using this email to get reviews AND gain new clients by spreading awareness of their brand.
I couldn’t believe that anyone would just sign up to get a loan or a credit card after receiving a sketchy email, but then I kept reading more reviews.
In more than one instance I saw that this was in fact the case. More than one person had received this unsolicited email and they then went on to sign up for an account with Avant.
Truthfully, that seems like a good potential motive for this company’s actions to me.
Phishing Scam?
Another reviewer pointed out that they thought this was a phishing scam conducted by someone pretending to be Avant.
Avant itself has a blog post that says, “Be on the lookout for spelling errors or things that seem off. Attackers will often disguise their phishing emails by having it come from a close (but not quite right) version of the brand you’re familiar with. If you get an email from support@avaant.com and not support@avant.com, you can be certain it’s a fake.”
While that is really good advice, that doesn’t seem to be the case for this email that was sent out en masse.
The email did come from a subdomain connected to Avant’s primary domain:
support@e.avant.com (the email I and many others received)
support@avant.com (Avant’s contact email address)
This spam email didn’t come from support@eavant.com, support@e-avant.com, or even support@e.avaant.com — those are all examples of fraudulent email addresses with different domain names.
This email came from a real Avant subdomain.
Pay extra close attention to the spellings and the periods in email addresses. The periods are very important.
So yeah, Avant did send this email.
The Solution
There was nothing I or anyone else could do stop Avant from sending out this email.
I mean, how was I supposed to know that a company I’d never heard of would buy my information and send me spam?
Even so, there are steps that I (and you) can take to stop this from happening again.
Check Your Credit Reports
First of all, make sure to check your credit reports! If anyone is claiming that you have opened a line of credit with them, then you need to verify if this is true.
You can find a list of all your current and previous credit accounts by checking your credit report for free at https://www.annualcreditreport.com/.
Freeze Your Credit
You can also protect yourself by taking it a step further and freezing your credit reports with each credit Bureau.
By placing a Freeze on your credit, it will make it too difficult — if not impossible — for identity thieves to open new accounts in your name.
Make sure to freeze your credit with each of the “big three” credit bureaus: Experian, Transunion, and Equifax.
You’ll also want to make sure and freeze your reports with ChexSystems.
ChexSystems is similar to the big three credit bureaus; banks use them to run reports before opening new checking and savings accounts.
Leave a Negative Review
I think that after all of this, Avant deserves to get exactly what they asked for. Go ahead and leave a truthful, negative review.
Consumers should know what sketchy business this company has been up to, so share it with the world! They’ve earned it.
Report them to the Better Business Bureau
If you’re really passionate about this, you might also consider leaving a truthful, negative review with the Better Business Bureau.
Don’t be surprised if Avant contacts you regarding your review there. The BBB platform is often used as a mediator for resolving issues.
Report them to the FTC
Finally, if you want to go the extra mile, you might report Avant to the FTC.
You may want to brush up on the CAN-SPAM Act to see if you can find that they are in clear violation before your take this step though.
Conclusion
I know that this whole experience can seem very unsettling.
One minute you’re terrified that your identity might be stolen, the next you realize it’s just a company with extremely immoral business practices.
However, once you take a breather and educate yourself on the situation it’s not so scary anymore.
You can take back control of the situation, and that’s not scary at all — it’s empowering.
Oh Hey, It’s Ray is a real estate investor, entrepreneur, and former real estate agent. She lives happily with her husband and two children in the Pacific Northwest. See more from Ray at her YouTube channel and on Ohheyitsray.com