NetFirst Platinum Credit Card 2024 Review: A Last Resort for Online Shopping

A credit card that not only has no credit check but also has no interest charges or security deposit requirement may sound like a great deal. Don’t be fooled, though. With hefty “membership fees,” the NetFirst Platinum credit card will cost you more in the long term than you’d pay if you put down a deposit for a better everyday credit card.

What’s more, you can only use it at the Horizon Outlet online store, so it’s more like a store card than a real credit card. Unlike many credit cards, it doesn’t report to credit bureaus, so it doesn’t build credit. As such, we’d recommend this card only if you’ve been rejected for numerous other offers and are out of other options for making Horizon Outlet purchases.

Quick Review

The NetFirst Platinum credit card is for people with lower credit scores. However, unlike many similar credit cards, it’s not secured. This means that you don’t have to worry about paying a security deposit.

You also won’t pay interest; instead, there’s a fixed membership fee of $14.77 per month. The advantage of this is that it makes your monthly minimum payments more predictable than if you were paying interest. However, with this card, the fees you pay are more expensive than most credit cards’ interest charges for the equivalent amount of credit.

What’s more, with most credit cards, minimum payments are 1%–4% of your balance. 1 With the NetFirst Platinum, minimum payments are 10%, so you’re forced to repay your debt faster.

In both the short term and the long term, the NetFirst Platinum credit card is a more expensive option than many secured credit cards out there. It also offers no rewards or credit reporting, and it has very limited use, as you can only use it on the Horizon Outlet shopping site—a members-only online shopping site that sells clothes, shoes, home furnishings, electronics, and various other products.

For these reasons, the NetFirst Platinum credit card isn’t really worth considering 99 times out of 100. Instead, we recommend checking out cheaper, better alternatives like these:

• Secured credit cards
• Credit cards for no credit 
• Credit cards for bad credit

NetFirst Platinum Important Details

Basic card details

• Card type: Merchandise card
• Credit card issuer: Horizon Card Services
• Monthly membership fees: $14.77

Additional Information

• No interest charges.
• Credit can be used only at the Horizon Outlet online store.
• Cash advances are not available.
• Balance transfers are not available.
• No credit check or employment check needed.
• No credit reporting to any credit bureaus.
• Member benefits include legal assistance, prescription discount plan, credit report monitoring, identity theft insurance, and roadside protection (for some cardholders).
• No app available.

NetFirst Platinum Feature Breakdown

In this section, we’ll look at some of the most important features of the NetFirst Platinum credit card.

Fees

The NetFirst Platinum credit card has an unusual system for fees. There are no annual fees, but there are “monthly membership fees” (which are the same for everyone). Most of the other usual fees don’t apply:

• Monthly membership fee: $14.77
• Account activation fee: $0
• Late/returned payment fee: N/A
• Foreign transaction fee: N/A
• Cash advance fee: N/A

Notably, there are no late fees. However, your card could get deactivated or your credit limit reduced if you miss payments.

Repayment Terms

Every month, you’ll have to make a minimum payment on your NetFirst Platinum account. The minimum payment is equivalent to either:

• (a) 10% of the Horizon Outlet Account balance as it stands at the end of the month.
• (b) $25.00 (or the entire account balance if it’s less than $25).

By contrast, with most credit cards, minimum payments are 1%–4% of your balance. 1 So the NetFirst Platinum requires a comparatively larger payment each month (which is good for paying off your debts quickly, but bad if you need more leeway when you’re tight for cash).

According to the NetFirst Platinum cardholder terms, you must have a valid and active US credit card or debit card account that you have to use for your NetFirst Platinum membership fees and also the shipping fees on anything you order with your card.

If you don’t pay your bill on time and/or don’t pay at least the minimum amount, your NetFirst Platinum Account will go into default status. If this happens, the issuer may:

• Demand that you immediately pay whatever’s outstanding on your account.
• Terminate your account.
• Reduce your available credit.
• Proceed with legal action.

Or they may take other measures to restrict your credit and retrieve the money you owe.

Interest Rates

Normally, credit cards charge interest if you don’t pay off your balance in full by the due date. If you don’t pay off your balance in full by the due date, you’re said to be “carrying a balance.”

When you carry a balance, the interest you’ll pay depends on your credit card balance and on variations in your credit card APR (if your card’s APR is said to be “variable,” which is normally the case). This makes interest charges unpredictable and tricky to budget around.

The NetFirst Platinum credit card allows you to carry a balance, but it doesn’t charge interest. Instead, it charges monthly membership fees. This means you’ll pay the same fee every month.

Fixed fees are more predictable than interest charges. However, they could be costlier.

For example, if you maxed out your NetFirst Platinum credit line each month, the fees you’d pay in a year ($177.24) would be close to the interest you’d pay on a credit card with a 24% APR (similar to the interest you’d pay with a $750 balance on a fairly average store credit card). But if you were using a smaller part of your $750 NetFirst Platinum credit, the fixed fees would give you a worse deal compared with many other cards.

Rewards

The NetFirst Platinum credit card doesn’t offer cashback rewards.

While rewards programs are rarer in cards for low or limited credit scores, they do exist. For example, Petal credit cards offer cashback rewards to borrowers without credit histories, and the Discover It® Secured credit card has a rewards program for low-credit borrowers.

If rewards are important to you, consider a more traditional credit card like those mentioned.

Perks

One interesting aspect of the NetFirst Platinum credit card is the unusual perks package, including:

• Legal assistance: This benefit gives you toll-free and internet access to legal resources, including one free 30-minute consultation with a legal professional in your area.
• My Universal Rx: This is a program you can join to get a discount of up to 50% on drugs and medicines at over 55,000 pharmacies around the country. It’s designed for people who don’t have health insurance or other types of coverage that reimburse the cost of their prescriptions.
• Credit protection: This service allows you to monitor your credit 24/7 and provides annual credit report updates as well as identity theft insurance.
• Credit-building tools: You’ll get access to one or more of your credit scores—albeit not FICO scores—and to interactive tools (e.g., a credit score simulator and a credit score tracker) that you can use to get an idea of what’ll happen to your score when you take certain actions like taking out loans or missing credit card payments.
• Roadside protection: The advantage of this plan compared with the roadside assistance programs that Visa® and Mastercard® offer is that, whereas Visa® and Mastercard® make you pay for all the services you use, the NetFirst Platinum plan gives you a limited number of services for free (e.g., towing worth up to $50 and over a distance of up to 15 miles, fuel delivery for up to 2 gallons of fuel, a lock-out service, and a flat tire change service with spare tires you provide). However, the roadside assistance benefit may not always be included for all account holders.

Note that you’ll lose all of the above benefits if you don’t pay your bills on time.

Cash Advances and Balance Transfers

A cash advance is when you take money out at an ATM using your credit card.

A balance transfer is when you move debt from one credit card to another. Balance transfers are often used for debt consolidation, where borrowers transfer debt from one card to another, lower interest rate card. The best way to make balance transfers is to look for cards with a low balance transfer fee and a low balance transfer APR.

Unfortunately, the NetFirst Platinum credit card doesn’t allow cash advances or balance transfers, so you’ll need to look elsewhere if you want a credit card that offers these features.

Credit Limit

The NetFirst Platinum credit card has a credit limit of $750 for all cardholders when they start out. However, the credit limit is not a credit limit per se, but a merchandise credit line—meaning that you can only use it at Horizon Outlet stores.

You cannot get a credit limit increase, as $750 is the maximum. However, your credit line can be reduced if you don’t keep up with repayments.

Credit Building

Credit reporting is an important part of building credit, as your credit report is updated based on the information your lenders provide to the credit bureaus. Lenders aren’t required by law to report your credit history, and some lenders choose to only report to one or two of the major credit bureaus, if any.

The NetFirst Platinum credit card doesn’t report to any credit bureaus, so it’s not good for building credit.

Credit Score Requirements

The NetFirst Platinum card has no credit check as part of the application. This means it’s suitable for borrowers with poor credit or limited credit histories.

It also means that the application won’t impact your credit, as you won’t get a hard inquiry on your credit report (a negative mark on your credit report that costs your credit score a few points) when the issuer processes your application.

Application and Approval

To apply for the NetFirst Platinum credit card, fill out the online application form. Note that there’s no prequalification.

There’s also no employment check (as well as no credit check), so your chances of getting approved are very good.

One interesting feature of the NetFirst Platinum credit card is that you get a 7-day trial period after you sign up. You can use your card to shop at the Horizon Outlet during this time. At the end of the 7 days, you’re free to cancel; you’ll only have to pay the value of whatever you’ve bought.

Using Your Account

To use your NetFirst Platinum card, go to the Horizon Outlet shopping site. Then use your sixteen-digit card number to log in (with your zip code as your password).

Customer service

If you need help with your NetFirst Platinum card, the phone number for customer service assistance is (800) 837-4997.

Should You Get the NetFirst Platinum Credit Card?

FinanceJar verdict

Although the NetFirst Platinum credit card is an easy option that’s accessible even to borrowers with less-than-ideal credit, it’s not a worthwhile deal. If you check out the credit card market, most of the alternatives on offer will include one or more of the following:

• Broader acceptance (often including foreign transactions)
• Cheaper fees
• A higher credit limit or credit limit increases
• Cashback rewards
• Credit reporting
• Cash advances

As such, we’d recommend looking elsewhere for better deals before you consider the NetFirst Platinum.

Who is this card for?

• Anyone who will use the NetFirst Platinum benefits: The NetFirst Platinum credit card has some benefits that might save you money: for example, it comes with roadside protection—handy if you don’t already have car breakdown coverage. And you’ll get the unusual perks of free legal assistance and prescription discounts (which could be helpful for cardholders who don’t have medical insurance). So if you think these benefits will save you money, that might possibly justify signing up for the NetFirst Platinum.
• Borrowers who’ve been rejected by many other cards: This card isn’t highly recommendable unless you’ve run out of other options. If you’ve already tried and failed to get approved for credit cards for bad or limited credit (as well as store cards like the Amazon store card or the Sam’s Club credit card), it may be worth trying for the NetFirst Platinum as a last resort.

FAQs About the NetFirst Platinum Credit Card

1. Is the NetFirst Platinum a real credit card?

No, the NetFirst Platinum isn’t a real credit card per se. It has more limited use than normal credit cards, as it gives you a credit line that you can use only for online shopping on the Horizon Outlet website, classifying it as a merchandise card.

However, you really can use it to buy goods and services online.

2. What is the NetFirst Platinum?

The NetFirst Platinum is a merchandise card, which is a type of card that works at specific stores or families of stores. Merchandise cards are similar to store credit cards, but store credit cards usually charge interest when you carry a balance from month to month.

3. Where can I use my NetFirst Platinum credit card?

You can use your NetFirst Platinum card for purchases from the Horizon Outlet. This is an online catalog that sells clothing, cookware, tools, toys, and various other products (and you can only shop there if you have one of their credit cards). You can’t use your card anywhere else, like at the gas station or in supermarkets, as it only works for Horizon Outlet purchases.

Comparable Cards

To determine whether the NetFirst Platinum credit card is suitable for your needs, take a look at how it measures up against some of the more conventional credit cards on the market.

NetFirst Platinum vs. Surge Mastercard® Unsecured Credit Card

NetFirst Platinum vs. Tomo Credit Card

NetFirst Platinum vs. Petal® 1 Visa® Credit Card