The Fortiva® Credit Card is designed for people who want to improve their credit scores. Unlike many similar credit cards, it’s unsecured, so you don’t have to pay a security deposit.
However, you’ll have to pay potentially huge fees of $49–$334 per year just to have the card in your wallet; plus, the APR (aka credit card interest rate) is notably high. And even if those expenses don’t deter you, you’ll still only be eligible for the card if you’ve received a prequalification offer in the mail.
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Quick Review
Many cards designed for improving credit are secured credit cards, meaning that you have to put down a security deposit. However, the Fortiva® Credit Card is unsecured, meaning there’s no deposit requirement and your credit line depends on your creditworthiness rather than the deposit you pay. But even without the deposit requirement, the Fortiva® Credit Card is an expensive borrowing option, given its many fees.
You’ll normally have to pay an annual fee (of $0–$175) plus, after the first year, monthly account maintenance fees (of $60–$159). That means you could pay as much as $334 a year in fees alone. There’s also a high purchase APR of 29.90% (variable), which may be fixed or variable, although the Fortiva issuer doesn’t specify how they’ll determine this. So you could pay high interest charges on top of the fees.
The advantages of the Fortiva® Credit Card are that it reports your account activity to the three major credit bureaus each month, helping you to build credit quickly—as long as you use your credit card responsibly and pay your bills on time. You can also increase your credit limit over time (although it’s not specified what kind of credit line you’ll be looking at to start with).
The most interesting feature of the Fortiva® Credit Card is that it lets you make balance transfers and even waives the associated fees for the first year. However, as you’d expect from a credit card like this, the balance transfer APR is high with no intro APR offers to make it worthwhile to consolidate credit card debt onto the Fortiva® Credit Card.
All in all, the Fortiva® Credit card is a bad credit card option. If you’ve received an offer in the mail, we recommend you hold off responding and instead look for cards with one or more of the following features:
- No annual fees
- No monthly fees
- Lower APR
- Cashback rewards
- Other perks and benefits
Fortiva® Credit Card Important Details
Basic Card Details
- Credit card issuer: Bank of Missouri
- Purchase APR: 29.90% (variable)
- Annual fee: $49–$175 in the first year; $0–$49 after that
- Grace period: 25 days
Additional Information
- Unspecified maximum initial credit limit.
- Periodic reviews for credit limit increases.
- Cash advances are available (with fees).
- Foreign transactions are available (with fees).
- Balance transfers are available (with fees after the first year).
- Free TransUnion VantageScore 4.0 credit scores.
- No penalty APR.
- Authorized users are allowed (subject to a $19 one-time fee for each user).
- Reports to all three credit bureaus monthly.
- Transaction alerts and card lock options.
- Zero liability protection.
- Mastercard® benefits (e.g., fraud and ID theft protection, TransUnion credit report monitoring, and emergency assistance for lost or stolen cards).
Fortiva® Credit Card Feature Breakdown
Let’s look at some of the important features of the Fortiva® Credit Card to see whether it’s suitable for your needs.
Fees
- Annual fee: $49–$175 in the first year; $0–$49 after that
- Monthly fees: None for the first year; $5–$12.50 per month ($60–$159 per year) after that
- Cash advance fee: $5 or 5% (whichever is greater)
- Balance transfer fee: 0% in the first year; 3% after that
- Foreign transaction fee: 3%
- Authorized user fee: $19 (one-time)
- Late payment fee: Up to $41
Unfortunately, most credit cards for limited, no, or bad credit come with high fees. However, the Fortiva® Credit Card fees are high even for borrowers in this credit range.
The Fortiva® Credit Card issuer doesn’t mention any overlimit fees for going over your credit limit. But it might block transactions or penalize you in other ways if you do this, so you should still avoid exceeding your credit limit.
Interest Rates
- Regular APR: 29.90% (variable)
- Cash advance APR: 29.90% (variable)
- Balance transfer APR: 29.90% (variable)
- Penalty APR: None
- Minimum interest charge: Not specified
If you don’t pay your credit card balance in full each month, you’ll be charged interest. The interest you’ll pay each year depends on your credit card’s APR (“annual percentage rate”).
The Fortiva® Credit Card terms state that you can either be offered a fixed APR (one that won’t change based on market conditions, such as the prime rate) or a variable APR (one that will change based on the prime rate). However, they don’t specify how they determine which type of interest rate you’ll be offered.
Either way, the Fortiva® Credit Card’s interest rates are high. However, this is common for cards that help you build or rebuild credit. Ideally, you should pay your balance in full every month to avoid high interest charges.
Notably, the Fortiva® Credit Card doesn’t have a penalty APR (an increased APR that credit cards charge if you miss payments). But if you miss payments, you’ll still incur fees and get late payments on your credit report, so it’s important to avoid this.
Grace Period
The Fortiva® Credit Card gives you a 25-day credit card grace period (beginning on the first day of the new billing cycle). The grace period gives you time to pay your bills in full without racking up interest charges.
If you pay your previous balance in full by the due date, your credit card purchases during the grace period won’t accumulate interest. However, if you carry a balance from previous billing cycles, you’ll be charged interest on purchases you make during the grace period.
Rewards
The Fortiva® Credit Card isn’t currently offering any rewards programs.
If you have poor credit or a lack of credit history, it’s harder to find credit cards that offer cashback rewards. However, it’s still not out of the question.
Even if you have imperfect credit, you can find credit cards with cash back or rewards points for your credit score range. So if earning rewards is important to you, keep looking for a more suitable card.
Benefits
The Fortiva® Credit Card offers the following benefits:
- Free credit scores: You’ll get free VantageScore 4.0 credit scores from your TransUnion credit report.
- Zero fraud liability protection: This means that you won’t have to pay for any purchases on your card that you haven’t authorized (e.g., if your card gets lost or stolen).
- Mastercard® ID Theft Protection: This includes fraud and ID theft protection, TransUnion credit report monitoring, and emergency assistance if your card is lost or stolen.
- 24-hour assistance for lost or stolen cards: This gives you an emergency phone number to report your card lost or stolen and get emergency card replacements. You can also ask for emergency cash advances.
- Discounted Mastercard® airport concierge service: This means you’ll enjoy a 15% saving on Mastercard® airport meet-and-greet services.
You’ll get most of these benefits (or similar ones) as standard with any Mastercard® or Visa® credit card.
Cash Advances
A cash advance is when you use your credit card to take money out from an ATM. Cash advances are allowed on the Fortiva® Credit Card.
The cash advance fee is either $5 or 5% of the amount of each advance—whichever is greater. The cash advance APR is potentially higher than the purchase APR at 29.90% (variable).
Because the cash advance APR is high, ATM withdrawals could rack up a lot of interest charges if you don’t pay your balance in full by the due date.
Balance Transfers
A balance transfer is when you move debt from one credit card to another (which is a common form of debt consolidation). The Fortiva® Credit Card allows balance transfers, with a balance transfer APR of 29.90% (variable).
There are also balance transfer fees. However, you don’t have to pay any balance transfer fees in the first year. After the first year, the fees are equivalent to 3% of the transfer amount.
As the balance transfer APR is quite high for the Fortiva® Credit Card, we don’t recommend using this card to consolidate credit card balances.
Credit Limit
The Fortiva® Credit Card website and cardholder agreement don’t specify what credit limits the card offers. However, reports online claim that the maximum initial credit limit is $1,000.
The Bank of Missouri also offers very similar cards (e.g., a Fortiva® Credit Card with cashback rewards) that gives you an initial maximum credit limit of $1,000, so it’s likely that the Fortiva® Credit Card will offer you $1,000 or less to start.
However, the Fortiva® Credit Card website does mention opportunities for credit limit increases, though it doesn’t specify how you can qualify for these increases. With most credit card companies, you can qualify for more credit by using your card regularly and paying off your balances on time.
Credit Reporting
Credit reporting is important for building credit, as your credit report consists of the information your lenders send to the credit bureaus.
Lenders aren’t legally required to report your credit history; many report to only one or two of the major credit bureaus, if any. Fortunately, the Fortiva® Credit Card reports to all three credit bureaus (Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion). This will allow you to improve your credit score with every bureau.
Credit Building
Because the Fortiva® Credit Card reports to all three credit bureaus, it’s good for credit building. However, you must keep up with your monthly payments to benefit your credit score. If your payments are late or missed, your credit will suffer.
Credit Score Requirements
The Fortiva® Credit Card website says that the card is suitable for holders of less-than-perfect credit. This means that you may be eligible if you have poor, fair, or limited credit.
Application and Approval
You can only apply for a Fortiva® Credit Card if you’ve already received a preselected Fortiva® Credit Card offer by mail. To accept a preapproval offer, visit the Fortiva® Credit Card website and enter your acceptance code.
Note that your preapproval offer won’t have had any effect on your credit score, but the next step of the Fortiva® Credit Card application will probably involve a hard inquiry. A hard inquiry, also known as a hard pull or hard credit check, appears on your credit report whenever you apply for a line of credit, and it usually knocks a few points off your credit score.
Managing Your Account
You can log into your Fortiva® Credit Card account online to manage your account (including making payments). Alternatively, you can use the iOS or Android app.
You can also send payments in the form of a certified check or money order. You should send these to the address for payments shown on your monthly statement.
Customer Service
If you need help with your Fortiva® Credit Card, you can call customer service at (800) 245-7741, or you can write to them at:
Fortiva
P.O.Box 105555
Atlanta, GA 30348-5555
Alternatively, you can email them from the Fortiva website.
Lost or Stolen Cards
If your Fortiva® Credit Card is lost or stolen, call (800) 710-2961 as soon as possible.
Should You Get the Fortiva® Credit Card?
FinanceJar Verdict
The downsides of the Fortiva® Credit Card include potentially huge fees, a high APR, no rewards, and limited cardholder benefits. As such, if you’re looking for a credit card for less-than-perfect credit, you can definitely do a lot better.
If you’re concerned about your eligibility for credit card offers, check out:
Who is this card for?
- Borrowers who don’t want to pay a security deposit: The Fortiva® Credit Card is an unsecured credit card—meaning you don’t need to pay a security deposit—that’s designed for credit building. If your credit needs work but you’re determined to avoid paying a security deposit for a credit card, the Fortiva® Credit Card is one option you can consider.
- Holders of lower credit scores who want a credit boost: The main advantage of the Fortiva® Credit Card is that it’s available to people with imperfect credit. If you have bad credit, and you’ve been rejected for other cards, you may still qualify for the Fortiva® Credit Card. If you do, you can use it to start improving your credit score by paying your monthly bills in a timely manner.
Comparable Cards
To work out whether the Fortiva® Credit Card is a good fit for your needs, read on to see how it measures up against similar cards on the market.
Fortiva® Credit Card vs. Aspire® Credit Card
The Fortiva® Credit Card and the Aspire® Credit Card—another unsecured Bank of Missouri credit card for people with less-than-perfect credit—are almost identical.
They share the following features:
- They have no account-opening fees.
- They have the same monthly fees after the first year.
- They have the same annual fees.
- The purchase APRs, cash advance APRs, and balance transfer APRs are identical.
- The foreign transaction fees, cash advance transaction fees, and balance transfer fees are identical.
- Both offer you free VantageScore 4.0 credit scores.
The only marked difference between the two cards is that you can prequalify for the Aspire Credit Card online, whereas you can only apply for the Fortiva® Credit Card if you’ve received a prequalifying mail offer. If you haven’t received an offer, you’ll only be able to apply for the Aspire® card. Otherwise, you should apply for the Fortiva® Credit Card if you’ve already prequalified (as this means that you’ll have a good chance of being approved).
Fortiva® Mastercard® vs. PREMIER Bankcard® Mastercard®
Like the Fortiva® Mastercard®, the PREMIER Bankcard® Mastercard® is an unsecured credit card for credit building.
The PREMIER Bankcard® Mastercard® has numerous drawbacks:
- It always has annual fees after the first year (annual fees are $45–$49 after the first year).
- It charges a fee when you open your account (of $55–$95).
- It will probably give you a more expensive purchase APR, as it has a fixed purchase APR of 36.00% (fixed).
- It has more expensive fees for authorized users ($29 per person per year).
- It has credit limit increase fees.
- It doesn’t offer balance transfers.
However, on the upside, the PREMIER Bankcard® Mastercard®:
- May give you cheaper annual fees in the first year (when annual fees are $50–$125).
- Gives you free FICO scores, which are more widely used than the VantageScore credit scores you get free with your Fortiva® Credit Card.
Overall, there won’t be much in it between the Fortiva® Credit Card and the PREMIER Bankcard® Mastercard® in terms of fees. Although the Fortiva® Credit Card is slightly better, both cards are very expensive, and we recommend looking for a different card altogether.
Fortiva® Credit Card vs First Savings Mastercard® Credit Card
The Fortiva® Credit Card and the First Savings Mastercard® credit card are both aimed at borrowers trying to improve their credit histories. Both are unsecured, meaning that you don’t have to pay a security deposit.
However, the First Savings Mastercard® has a few advantages over the Fortiva® Credit Card:
- It has cheaper cash advance fees of 2%.
- It has potentially cheaper late fees, which only go up to $25.
- It’ll probably have lower fees in the first year, when there are annual fees of $49–$75.
- It’ll probably still be cheaper after the first year, because it has no monthly fees, whereas the Fortiva® Credit Card has monthly fees after the first year.
The two cards also have several features in common:
- They both have potentially expensive annual fees.
- Neither has cashback rewards.
- They’re both Mastercard® credit cards (which means good coverage abroad and several basic benefits like ID theft protection and emergency card replacement).
- They’re both by invitation only, so you can apply only if you’ve received an offer in the mail.
Because you’ll usually pay more in fees overall for the Fortiva® Credit Card, the First Savings Mastercard® is a cheaper option for most people.
