Ok people, the truth is going to come out in this opinion. I am from Canada, and originally moved here to New Jersey last February. I still have my credit cards from Canada and I still use them, meaning I pay the exchange rate twice. This is very inconvenient for me, and I had always wanted a card here to avoid this problem. Unfortunately my Social Security number is only four months old and I have no credit here. This shouldn't be too much of a problem considering I am an assistant manager for a corporate owned video game company widespread throughout the country.

One day I receive a phone call from Net 1st bank, offering me a card. The deal they had given me over the phone didn't sound as bad as some offers I had heard. The one time processing fee was $99, which I admit is high, but I have no credit. There is a monthly fee of $8/ month to keep the card active, and it is supposed to build credit faster than other cards. I had pre-authorized the $99 payment for the processing fee, two weeks from the actual phone call just to allow myself to have my rent taken care of first to avoid bouncing checks and was promised a $500 limit.

About a week later I get a letter from the company, saying that I had been approved for the credit card with the limit I had been promised BUT the $500 was going to be applied to the card, and I had to pay that off before I could start using it. So now the fees are nearly $700 and way too much to pay just to have a credit card. I immediately phoned the company to cancel the processing, because this was no longer favorable. I was told that the money for the processing fee was already in the process of going through, and they were waiting on the bank's end. This was a week before they were authorized to take the money from the account! I phoned my bank, and put a freeze on my checking account so that this fee wouldn't be taken out. Given that this was not a check I had given Net 1st, I had to close my account in order to stop them from getting the processing fee out of my bank account for a card I didn't want.

My rant is that if I was told the whole story with the $500 credit limit, I would have never even gave the card a second thought. I never even would of considered getting it.
Net 1st could have post dated the withdrawal for the processing fee, and had told me they were going to and did exactly the opposite (or tried to do). It is a very devious way for a company to get someone to sign with their card.
Please don't bother with this company. If this is how they deal with people before you even get the card, can you imagine what having a card with them is really like? I can see hidden charges galore, with high fluctuating interest rates everywhere.


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