Not accepting VISA/MasterCard Debit Cards encourages clients to go offline with the freelancer

[monitive]

Greetings,

As a client, I want to use my company US debit card to pay the freelancers, but when adding it to my account, I get an unfriendly "We're sorry, but Upwork does not accept Prepaid or Gift Cards. Please try to add a different payment method." message.

Obviously the company card it is not a Gift / Prepaid card, but a regular debit card. I can understand that Upwork wants to have some sort of certainty that they want to be able to charge the client, but requesting a credit card seems distrustful on their part. 

And since using the company credit card is a bureaucratic nightmare (not to mention losing money on conversion), this only encourages me to go offline / off-Upwork with the freelancers that I hire, because I have enough complications in my daily business job, I don't need a financial complication as well. 

I just want to see other opinions on this subject. Maybe it's just me.

[AleksandarD]

Hi Lucian,

I shared your issue with the rest of our team and one of our agents will reach out to you directly via a support ticket to assist you further.

As a gentle reminder, please note that taking paying your freelancers outside the platform is a serious violation of the Upwork's Terms of Service.

Thank you.

[monitive]

Thank you Alexander, I know that, I seriously want to avoid going outside of Upwork.

I just hope that the platform enables us to collaborate in an efficient and safe way. Clients might just pass Upwork as a platform due to the card policy.