Renting directly from owner-advice

[SmileWoman]

I have done tons of research and read these boards for weeks. I have agreed to rent a townhouse from an owner.
I have asked about the management company and verified them as well as I can thru BBB. Owner states he takes credit cards. I want to pay by credit card for the extra assurance of being able to dispute it there was a problem.

Apparently you pay by credit card by going thru PayPal. I have never used Paypal before. After two evenings and quite a while on the phone with my CC company and Paypal....I am told that PayPal will not let me pay using any credit card because this is a "high risk" transaction. They say it has nothing to do with my credit cards. They will not take any of them. I have VISA, MC and AMEX. They say they would be happy to debit my bank account. That defeats the whole purpose of using the credit card.

So...have any of you that regularly rent from owners had this kind of problem??


S

 

[kokomos]

I sent payment for deposit via paypal last week with funding from credit card.
I sent the paypal directly to the email account of the owner stating what it was for with no problems. I assume I will be covered through Visa if there are any problems. But I didnt have any problems using paypal.
Maybe because you have a new paypal account is what is making it high risk?

 

[Freaky]

Maybe their Management Company will take a credit card payment for them - worth asking anyway It will depend if the Management Company do bookings or just clean and maintain the property.

 

[joellyn23]

I pay my rental via personal check, but they do require a $500 credit card damage deposit, which I process via PayPal without a problem. A few weeks after my trip, they credit me back via PayPal. I'm not sure why PayPal won't do it.

 

[gqchicago]

That makes no sense. I've seen vacation rentals get processed through Paypal and CCs dozens of times. "Heard of it" many many times if you catch my drift....

 

[snowbunny]

Let me count the ways I dislike Paypal. Even when you have a verified paypal account, they do whatever they can, constantly, to get you to debit directly from a bank account rather than fund via a credit card.

The last straw for me was when I rented points from a DVC owner a few months ago (via a credit card in two separate transactions) and a busybody from paypal called me demanding to know what I bought.

I agree with the suggestions to see whether the management co. will accept a credit card payment directly. Quite honestly if you have a problem, paypal is not going to help you anyway. There are several threads on the Dis by members recounting how they were ripped off on ebay and Paypal did nothing or actually sided with the person who filed a bogus claim.