Posted by: John S Kiernan

Rating: 1 / 5

The Verdict: The Total Visa Credit Card is the exact opposite of the complete package, charging you an arm and a leg for a very modest unsecured credit line.

You have to pay an $89 application-processing fee just to get the Total Visa, which is issued by Mid America Bank & Trust Company. And once your account is open, you will be responsible for a $75 first-year fee, which jumps to a total of $123 in subsequent years between annual and monthly fees. Furthermore, if you carry a balance from month to month — ostensibly what this type of card is intended for — interest will accrue at a ridiculously high 29.99% APR, one of the highest rates on the market.

What you get in return for this significant investment is $225 of spending power and a chance to improve your credit if you behave well. But all credit cards provide the latter, most at a much cheaper price point. And there are less expensive ways to get an emergency loan, too. You would therefore be wise to focus on the Total Visa’s top competition when reading the rest of our in-depth review below.

The Highlights

• Offers Credit-(Re)building Capabilities: No matter how bad your credit might be, you should be able to get approved for the Total Visa Card, provided that you can afford its $89 up-front cost. This buys you a way to add new information to your credit reports on a monthly basis, which will help rebuild your score if it reflects on-time payments.

The Lowlights

• $164 In Initial Fees: The fees begin rolling in before things even really get started, with an $89 fee for “application processing” that must be paid prior to account opening. It’s rare for a credit card to have such a fee, so either the Total Visa is gouging folks or pretty much every other issuer is offering a steep discount. And considering that only approved applicants have to pay the $89 fee, does that mean you’re paying for all the rejected applications that were processed? And if the fee’s not really for application processing, what is it — a shakedown?

  That’s only the beginning, too, unfortunately. If you decide to pay up and open an account, you’ll get hit with a $75 annual fee the first month your account is open, reducing your initial credit line of $300 to just $225. Altogether, that amounts to $164 in fixed fees before your first account anniversary. And things don’t get much better after that.

• $136 In Unsecured Initial Spending Power: The bit of borrowing potential provided by unsecured credit cards for people with bad credit supposedly is among their biggest draws. Emergency expenses can’t always be handled with cash on hand, after all. Yet Total Visa will give you a grand total of just $136 in funds that you can’t cover yourself to start out with. That’s what you’re left with after subtracting the $89 application-processing fee and $75 first-year annual fee from your $300 initial credit line. And while that paltry sum might help you pay a small bill or two, it certainly won’t go very far.

• $123 In Fees Each Subsequent Year: The Total Visa Card’s annual fee drops down to $48 beginning in the second year, which may lead you to believe it will be less expensive to use. However, that annual fee is supplemented by a $6.25 “monthly servicing” fee, which pushes the yearly tab to $123. In contrast, many other offers, secured or unsecured, do not charge monthly fees.

• Very High Regular APR: If you have bad credit, it’s wise to get in the habit of paying your bill in full simply because funds are probably tight and you don’t want to waste your money on interest. That’s true no matter what type of credit card you’re using but especially one with an APR as high as the Total Visa Card’s, 29.99%, which is among the highest on the market in general. At nearly 30%, it’s even significantly above the 18.65% average for secured credit cards, according to WalletHub’s latest Credit Card Landscape Report.

• Can’t Be Used At Gas Stations Or Abroad: In order to reduce risk, the Mid America Bank & Trust Company, issuer of the Total Visa, prohibits use of the card at automated fuel pumps (which places a hold on your credit line and often are a first stop for card thieves) as well as purchases processed internationally. If you or an authorized user on your account uses the card for any such transactions, you’ll have to compensate the issuer for any expenses they incur as a result, though it’s unclear from the card’s Terms & Conditions exactly what those expenses include. This Visa, as a result, is not everywhere you want to be.

Other Things To Consider

• Checking Account Required: The Total Visa Card’s terms don’t provide much information about this particular requirement, but it appears that you do need a checking account in order to qualify. You’re going to need a deposit account to make credit-card payments anyway, but this somewhat arbitrarily prevents prepaid cards, savings accounts, money orders and other non-checking means of payment from filling that role.

• $29 Annual Additional-Card Fee: If you want to add an authorized user to your account — not recommended unless the other person is someone you can trust to use the card responsibly — you’ll have to pay an additional $29 per year for the privilege. This doesn’t make much sense, however, as the account offers no rewards for spending, and an authorized user won’t earn you a higher credit limit. Bear in mind that other issuers charge a much lower fee or none at all for adding authorized users.

• Up To $37 Late- & Returned-Payment Fees: These fees (which are capped at $15 for Iowa residents) aren’t terribly high relative to the rest of the credit card market — the average is $35.50 — but they’re nevertheless important to avoid in the interest of not inflating already high costs. So make sure to pay your bill on time — by establishing automatic payments, for example — and keep enough cash in your checking account to easily cover the cost in case of a blunder.

• Other Assorted Fees: You’ll also have to pay a $3 copying fee for every page of each duplicate account statement or other document you request, $35 for express card delivery, $10 for expedited phone payments and more.

Compared To The Competition

  To help put the Total Visa Card into context, we compared it to some of the strongest competition, both secured and unsecured. We did so in terms of seven key categories that collectively speak to each card’s overall value. You can find the results in the following table.  

	Total Visa Credit Card	Credit One Credit Card	Milestone Gold Credit Card	Capital One Secured Credit Card	Discover it Secured Credit Card	Harley-Davidson Secured Credit Card
Application Processing Fee	$89	$0	$0	$0	$0	$0
First-Year Annual Fee	$75	$0 to $75	$35 to $75	$0	$0	$0
Subsequent-Year Fees	$123	$0 to $99	$99 (if first-year annual fee is $75)	$0	$0	$0
Requires Refundable Deposit?	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Min/Max Credit Limit	$300+	$300+	$300+	$200 to $3,000	$200 to $2,500	$300 to $5,000
Ongoing Rewards	None	1% back at gas stations and grocery stores OR 1.1% back at restaurants and 1% back everywhere else	None	None	2% on first $1,000 of combined restaurant and gas-station spending 1% everywhere else (All first-year earnings doubled)	3% at Harley-Davidson 2% at restaurants, gas stations, bars and hotels 1% on everything else
Regular APR	29.99%	15.90% to 24.40%	23.90%	24.99%	23.49%	23.49%
Editors’ Rating	1 Star	3 Stars	3 Stars	5 Stars	5 Stars	To be reviewed by WalletHub
Overall Winners	UnsecuredCredit One Credit Card			SecuredDiscover it Secured Credit Card

from Wallet HubWallet Hub


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