How we test
How DollarFerry tests, sources and stays honest
A payment guide is only worth reading if you can trust the data. Here’s exactly how we produce the compatibility table, when we update it, what we won’t do, and how to correct us.
Who we are
DollarFerry is a small, independent editorial project run by people who have spent years doing one annoying thing repeatedly: getting overseas payments to go through from countries where local cards are declined. We’re not a bank, a card issuer, or a financial adviser. We don’t issue cards and we don’t hold your money. We publish what we learn so you don’t have to rediscover it the hard way at a checkout at 1 a.m.
How we build the compatibility table
The compatibility table is our core asset, and we treat it like one:
- We test against live checkouts. A rating reflects what actually happens when a given card type meets a given service’s payment page, not what a forum thread claims.
- We rate the kind of card, not the brand. Whether a payment clears depends on the card network and the bank that issued the card, so we describe categories (US-issued virtual Visa/Mastercard, crypto-funded, app-bank dollar cards) instead of making promises about a single product.
- We date everything. Each entry carries a “last checked” date, and the table shows when the next review is due. If you’re reading a stale date, treat it with caution.
- We re-check monthly, and sooner when a reader or a major rule change tells us something moved.
- We show ranges, not false precision. Fees and acceptance vary by country and issuer, so we give honest ranges and tell you to confirm the live numbers.
Where our data comes from
Three places, in order of weight: our own checkout testing; primary sources (issuer terms, merchant help pages, regulator notices); and structured reader reports, which we re-verify before publishing. When something is genuinely uncertain, we say so rather than guessing — “verify at checkout” is a real answer, not a hedge.
What we will not do
- We don’t help with sanctions violations, merchant fraud, or deceiving a platform’s risk checks.
- We don’t teach region-spoofing to dodge legitimate pricing.
- We don’t give investment advice or predict cryptocurrency prices. Stablecoins appear here only as a short-lived dollar bridge for funding a card.
- We don’t impersonate any brand, and we’re not affiliated with OpenAI, Valve, Google, or Meta.
Independence and money
DollarFerry is reader-supported and earns affiliate commissions from some partners — clearly labelled “Sponsored” wherever they appear. A commission never changes a rating, and we only feature a partner when availability and local rules are clear enough to discuss responsibly. The full breakdown is on our disclosure page.
Found something wrong? Tell us
Rules change and we miss things. If an entry is out of date or a route stopped working, email [email protected] with the service, your country, and what happened. We re-test, update the date, and credit useful corrections.