Australian sex workers are up in arms after Visa and MasterCard blocked payments to a popular sex work advertisement website.

Backpage.com, which operates in America and Australia, is heavily used by local sex workers to place small advertisements.

Sex workers are furious about credit card bans Credit:Anthony Johnson AWJ

On Wednesday night Visa, MasterCard and American Express all blocked payments using credit and debit cards for sexual services ads on the site – the result of a campaign being run against the site in America, where sex work is illegal.

In Australia, where sex work is decriminalised in most states, that's causing outcry among sex workers who feel they are being unfairly discriminated against by the payments giants.