Overview
YapStone Inc. (yapstone.com) is a global merchant account provider offering cloud-based web and mobile payment processing. There is some evidence that the company is an ISO of Chase Paymentech. Formerly known as Paymerica, YapStone was founded in 1999 and primarily serves the housing and non-profit industries. Most notably, the company is a payment processing partner of growing vacation rental platforms like Homeaway and VRBO. YapStone offers multiple variations on its RentPayment processing platform, including VacationRentPayment, HolidayRentPayment, StorageRentPayment, InnPayment, DuesPayment, and ParishPay. Yapstone is located at 2033 N. Main St., Walnut Creek, California 94596 and is a registered ISO/MSP of Wells Fargo Bank NA in Walnut Creek, California. Tom Villante is listed as the chairman and CEO of Yapstone.
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YapStone Bottom Line
YapStone rates as a reliable merchant account provider according to our system. We do not currently have a great deal of specific information about the company’s contract terms, but YapStone and its RentPayment platform are showing a low-to-moderate amount of public complaints online. Many of these complaints are only loosely tied to the company’s merchant services offerings. Even when dealing with a highly rated company, merchants are advised to carefully examine all contract terms presented to them.
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About Phillip Parker
Phillip Parker is a former merchant services agent turned small business advocate and the author of "Fee Sweep," which teaches merchants how to dramatically lower their processing rates, eliminate junk fees, and avoid fine-print scams. He founded CardPaymentOptions.com to help merchants enact positive change in the credit card processing industry. Schedule a Consultation with Phillip
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Very poor customer care. If they do not want to assist you with a need, they will just hang up on you. They are scripted with their responses to you for issues that are time sensitive. No thinking outside of their box … Serious need for retraining as to who they are really working for.
Beware of this company. Nobody is ever available to help. They will also not assist you no matter how many time you email or call. Every time we have a customer chargeback we provide all the documents required for compliance when defending a chargeback. But, it does not matter, you lose every time and Yapstone keeps their fees. This is a crooked company.
I cannot say that I have ever had such a negative experience in my life as that with Yapstone acting under the banner of HolidayRentPayment for HomeAway. I had been a loyal customer of HomeAway registering a property for 8 years. Last year, as they apparently which to raise their valuation they started forcing their owners to use their HomeAway online site. HomeAway placed warning signs to prospective renters that they cannot guarantee payment will work unless using HomeAway online payment system (so they can charge a percentage) powered by Yapstone. I tried opening an account and provided PDF of Royal Bank of Canada statements proving bank account, my Canadian passport, proof of rental property, and Ontario Hydro utility bill. As the bill is in the name of my partner, I had him signed along with three witnesses that I am resident at the address of the utility bill. Yapstone refused stating I needed to pay a lawyer to notarise it. This means Yapstone believes that the Royal Bank of Canada, the people who signed it, as well as myself, a customer with Home Away for 8 years are all liars and cannot be believe. All they are doing is transferring funds to an authorised bank account. Totally over the top in terms of requirements. They need to review how they do business. So does Home Away – I have closed my accounts with them as they are totally indifferent to the issue. Renters should use AirBnB or Trip Advisor instead.
You power the payments of HolidayRentals on behalf of HomeAway.
Guests can use fraudulent cards to make payments and they go undetected by Yapstone. I was a victim of such case, where there was a chargeback and Yapstone took the payment (for which I was charged a processing fee) but no responsibility from their part and I was expected to pay back.
They hide behind terms & conditions that wave them from all responsibility.
Bottom line: don’t trust a company that used Yapstone to process payments on your behalf.
Yapstone are crooks to say the least! We accepted a booking from VRBO in which case the payment was processed by Yapstone and confirmed. Few days after the guest left, we received a dispute claim as apparently it was a fraud creditcard. Yapstone does not provide any information about the credit card of the person so we have no way to know what credit card they used or who it belongs to. After submitting the documents we received the following email telling me to choose. :
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1. ___I do not wish to contest this dispute.
2. ___I am requesting Pre-Arbitration ONLY. If the Card-Issuing Bank does not accept and files a Direct Arbitration case with Visa, I instruct you to withdraw. I understand my account will be debited for the disputed amount and the Filing fee of €270.00.
___I am requesting that Visa review the case in the event that the Card Issuer raises a Direct Arbitration. I understand I will be responsible for the dispute amount along with the filing (€270) and ruling (€270) fees assessed by Visa if the case is found in favor of the cardholder, as well as any technical fees Visa assesses at the time of the ruling.
I fully understand that my attached rebuttal will be supplied to the issuer and may result in this case being submitted to Visa for Arbitration. I further understand that I will be responsible for the €540.00 fee (€270 Filing fee and €270.00 review fee) per case if this case is ruled against me. In addition to the filing fee and review fee, all fees and /or fines are solely determined by Visa. Yapstone cannot guarantee the outcome of any pre-arbitration or arbitration ruling.
”
Asking a non refundable payment to dispute a payment they processed in the first place is just BAD BUSINESS. I am disgusted by the way they do business. Absolutely no regard to their customer and all about milking their customer in every way without taking any of the liability. DO NOT TRUST YAPSTONE OR VRBO. They are the most terrible business
I am a property owner and have one holiday rental. Needless to say, I am not a large company where I have a float in my bank account. I am new to holiday rentals and had a ‘chargeback’ or fraud perpetrated against me whereby the person who rented used a fraudulently obtained credit card number to reserve and stay at my rental. Yapstone, without warning withdrew the $880.00 CAD from my account. They tell me that I was warned, well I was warned the same day the withdrawal was made, and did not have enough time to make sure the funds were in the account. Needless to say, their withdrawal was NSF and I was charged $50 NSF fee from my bank. As mentioned above, I only have one rental and what I make from the rental is used for upkeep etc. I needed time to acquire the funds to pay Yapstone the $880.00. I have asked them if I could pay back the chargeback when I get further bookings which they responded that I could. This is where the confusion begins. I have received bookings and even email to remind Yapstone that they should retain the amount of this booking to place towards my outstanding $880.00. What did they do?? They deposited into my account. I received another booking and AGAIN I emailed them to remind them to retain the amount to put towards my outstanding $880.00. I did not receive a response nor did I have a deposit, so I am not sure what they did with this amount. I received another booking and again reminded them to retain the amount to put towards the remainder of my outstanding balance to them (and also advised them that this should satisfy my debt in full). What did they do?? They deposited this into my account. I know, if you have read through my complaint, you are probably confused too, well I am totally confused now. I am trying to pay them back, but they continue sending me funds??????!!! It is as though their customer service doesn’t speak to their accounting department.
VRBO rented my condo in February, 2016. Since that was my first rental I have called VRBO to ask them what to do next. They said the guest has paid through credit card, all look valid. So I called the guest and told him that he has to show his ID to concierge to pick-up the key. So the guest did not show up, so I called VRBO, telling them that guest is no show and he did not cancel, they said everything looks at their end and the guest might any day. So I had travel. After 1 month in March Yapstone deposited about $2608 to my bank account, on April 8th, Yapston has withdrawn $3,261 from my bank account. There was no email or any communication, I found out when checking my bank statement. When I called VRBO I was told it was a chargeback due to a fraudulent credit card. I said the charge back should be exactly the same amount and they have taken $450 more. So later I found out, VRBO and Yapston they still charge the Owner of the property for the commission and processing fee, even if it was fraudulent. So they are running a risk free business, they process anybody’s credit card, even it later becomes a fraudulent transaction, they will force the Owner/landlord to pay for their commission. So VRBO and YAPSTONE can process as many fraudulent booking to later charge the landlord. As far as I am concerned this looks like an inside job, someone trying to make commission by using a fraudulent credit card. How can a business make a commission if the sale did not happen. The other thing to point why is the owner of the vacation liable when the credit card was processed by YAPSTONE. Owner will lose either way, by having the place rented for free, cost associated with cleaning and damage and top of that still pay VRBO and Yapston for a failed fraudulent transaction. This a scam. Beware.
Not one but THREE fraudulent transactions with VRBO and Homeaway. This stuff never happens with my account with Airbnb & Tripadvisor.
It finally dawned on my after the last fraudulent transaction of $4000 with another $1000 in property damage (the other two fraudulent transactions were minor) that I should have picked up on the fact that these guys are not doing GUEST VERIFICATION checks. At least PayPal notifies you if they can’t do a proper identity verification. Yapstone nothing. Don’t do business with them or you might learn the hard way like I did?
This is the worst and unrealiable company to work with be carefull you wont receive your money ! I had a guest checked in, name was checked at arrival with passport. The name was the same as the renter whoms card was charged. They stayed. Holidayrent payment paid me the outstanding balance which is normal, Later they sent me an email that the card seemed to be stolen???!! Therfor they deducted without notice or any communication the rent of my next booking. They dont show any evidence and cancel payouts till the next booking. The guest who paid the booking was indeed the true person in live ! Holidayrentpayment doesnt prove anything to the landlord they are in severe default. I blocked my accounts on VRBO and Homeaway I dont want to work with this unreliable scammers anymore. Further on I will post a FB page to warn people against this organisation. DONT RELY YOU WILL LOOSE YOUR RENTAL INCOME.
One of my guests paid by eCheck…he made 1 payment. He entered numbers incorrectly and now I have been charged not 1 $25 fee but 2…$50 for that error. I cannot get a supervisor to answer the phone after the representatives answer to tell me, pretty much, that that’s the way it goes. I have also emailed them but I know I will get the same response or no response…it’s been 4 days since I emailed them. I would like resolution or suggestions from anyone who knows how to resolve this unfair, seemingly illegal, process. Thank you.
Yesterday, I received a bizarre 1099 from 2014! And, another 1099 for 2015. There is no way I received any where near this amount of money, and Yapstone says there is not a person to talk to. You must write them a letter. I even added in all the credit card processing fees. Even this did not help come up with what they say I received. Credit card processing fees are income to someone, but not me. Who knows how they came up with nearly $200,000. And, sending out a 1099 in 2016 for 2014 income? What am I supposed to do with that bizarre amount? I’m getting ready to file a complaint with the BBB.
Yapstone
This company asks for an unreasonable amount of info to set up payments for VRBO and home away. They ask for paperwork that cannot be produced bank statements with EIN on statement,, tax ID numbers, parts of tax returns EIN numbers. We opted out after they asked for a 40 page 1040 form from tax return (we had provided first page) Web search of “yapstone complaints ” reveals multiple security breaches of VRBO and Homeaway customers and pending lawsuits
Beware
They force you to use payment system or lose ranking . We have signed up for stripe & authorize payment systems and have never had to provide this amount of info. We haven’t had security breach … Yapstone has had many breached and many lawsuits. Be cautious.
Someone should build a service that works like VRBO worked before Expedia bought them.
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I contracted with Homeaway ” book it ” in 2014. Yapstone is the payment processing company that Homeaway presently uses for this service., The payments for my rentals all came in on time except for one. I did have to follow up with ” yapstone” in order to get that missed one paid out to me. I did receive that payment but they were difficult to reach and it was time consuming. It also made me wary of them.
I did stop using them, though, after I had a guest dispute. The dispute was a bogus attempt to get a freeby so I sent Yapstone all my paperwork immediately to counter the dispute. Yapstone made an error with my paperwork and they didn’t get the paperwork over to the bank for over a month. They told me that all was fine in the end and that the bank had refunded them the money pending the final outcome of the dispute. They also informed me that they would be keeping that money pending review rather than submitting it back to me, ( the common practice is that the payment processing companies refund dispute money back to the merchant pending dispute review).
Yapstone then informed me that I had to pay $250 upfront to them if I wanted to complete the dispute. I pointed out that the contract said $25 ( not $250 fees) for any dispute, They blamed the bank and gave me the option to pay $500 to them, only if I lost the dispute. Since the guest complaint was clearly inappropriate and bogus I told Yapstone to follow up with the dispute and I sent them further documentation to back up my counter claim. I was told that the process would complete by Oct 8th, 2015.
It is now January 15th, 2016 and so far I have heard nothing further from them. My last communication had been August 8th, 2015. I have again contacted them and they claim they have to research to find out why the process never completed and why they never followed up with any contact to me.
Apparently Yapstone is affiliated with Chase Bank ( Yapstone gave me this info). Furthermore The credit card used by the disputing client was a Chase bank credit card ( Yapstone gave me this info also) Therefore it would be Yapstone ( as Chase Bank) demanding I pay $250 ( or $500) in order to counter my client’s dispute and have my rental fees refunded back to me.
I no longer use Homeaway ” book it” and I have gone back to using my original payment processing company. I had been using my original company since 2006 and I had never had any issues at all with them, as well they are always easy to reach ( no message machines like Yapstone). My original processing company have informed me that they have never heard of a client being asked to pay out $250 or $500 in order to counter a dispute. The standard fee for disputes is $25, as was on my contract. It was nice to have the convenience of ” book It” but I would not go that route again if I have to go through this company to do so.
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I am a holiday home owner so rely on regular income to pay for repairs, cleaners etc. Yapstone is used by Owners Direct and I recently signed up for their automated payments service , essentially to make my life easier. Since this has been live I have not received notification on all payments being received and also started receiving failure to collect direct debit notices. When enquiring about this, I was told to ignore the notices and this is because UK Banks dont accept the Yapstone ‘International payments’ mandate. Clearly a massive breakdown in the operational readiness of being a payments service in the UK. This then means you have to sign up with Clearsettle that do handle UK bank payments. The worst part of this story is that even though I wa ssigned up to receive credits via clear settle , Yapstone managed to block all payments into my account. I have received no satisfactory answer to date, my escalation to a manager is fruitless, which tells me as a customer that either they do not care, or they are overworked. I am currently out of pocket by over £800 and missing 7 payments with absolutely no explanation of what broke down with the process. Shocking and if it had been me not paying them I imagine there would be very swift proceeding against me as a very small buisness owner. Formal complaint in progress with them but I am sceptical based on service? received so far.
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Yapstone requested very sensitive information in the way of passports, licenses and tax documents in order to process payments for my VRBO account. They declined my request and would not give a reason for doing so. I asked repeatedly for a reason why and also was concerned what they did with the sensitive documents I emailed to the company.
I’ve been running a thriving rental operation thanks to Airbnb. I’m a five star host and have a 100% approval rating.
If you don’t have to deal with Yapstone……I wouldn’t.
Mixed opinions re: Holiday Rent Payments (we’re based i the UK and have the European version).
Good points are…
1. No real issues in regard to receiving payments when guests have booked. The money is usually within the account within 5-7 days. That’s very useful.
2. I cannot argue that it is the best way to encourage guests to book and pay through the homeaway platform.
Bad things…
1. There were two or three occasions when they took a security deposit twice! Luckily we noticed (we have 50+ properties), but to be fair they were fairly quick at sorting it out when we did notice.
2. Most importantly, they do not support basic fraud prevention technologies like Verified By Visa. This leave the vendor very much exposed to credit and debit card fraud. If a chargeback is raised by the original card holder, they give you very little time to construct a defense (we were given less than 24 hours one occasion), and they seem to have absolutely no interest in properly representing the vendor in the case of a chargeback, whether it was genuine fraud or a mistake. I don’t understand why they don’t do more to protect vendors from this type of fraud. To compare, AirBnB have much more sophisticated anti-fraud tools, and can usually spot problematic bookings within 24 hours.
Conclusion – When things run smoothly they offer a good service, and it is the best way to encourage bookings. Make sure your accounting systems are tight so that you can spot potential problems like them not paying you or double charging you. By using them you are exposed to credit card fraud and chargebacks, which they will do very little to help you with, so beware. Make sure your guests are who they say they are, otherwise you WILL get stung sooner or later.
This is exactly what happened to me! Guy brought 10 dogs into my home. I asked him to leave. He made a chargeback. I had photos of the dogs and a signed NO PETS contract. He also brought 9 people. 3 over the limit. He was refunded his money because I didn’t let him stay! Found out he had to repay the government over $150,000 in fake Medicare charges at his two eye centers prior to this! This guy should be in jail. They should not expect me to let him stay in my home with 10 dogs and 3 extra humans!
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BAD EXPERIENCE WITH YAPSTONE/ VACATION RENT PAYMENTS. I am a long time user of Vacation Rentals/ VRBO.com. VRBO offers awesome customer service yet their service breaks down with the extremely bad service of Yapstone/ Vacation Rent payment (vrbo’s payment process vendor). Vrbo is actually rolling out the integrated ability to use any 3rd party vendor for payment processing probably because of the widespread unhappiness with Vacation Rent Payment. We are stuck with Vacation Rent Payment for now but hopefully that will change.
Last night, the indifference of Vacation Rent Payment was disappointing and her inability to assist with resolving the delay in setting up new processing on a new listing horrible. Vacation Rent Payment is guilty of enjoying exclusive relationships with larger companies that seem to be at an end and clearly had no need to offer good customer service. Bottom line, if you have a choice RUN RUN RUN from this company. ( Expect to see this review posted on other sites where you will not be able to delete it as I am sure you will from your board here.)
Finally the inability to actually get through to a supervisor or someone with the ability to fix a problem is impossible and the rep last night claims her supervisor did not want to get on the line.
Never completed required documents, and chose another company that had better customer services and processes. Then was billed and requested a reversal on the billed amount. Was replied with a message my account was removed…but no reversal. Was billed another month, sent e-mail and told to go to a link to cancel. The link asked for my name and e-mail and returned that we would receive instructions. Never received the instructions, and no reply to issue of being billed when my account did not complete the information requested. Still no resolution to issues.
This is a TERRIBLE company. My experience with them echoes other complaints I have now found about them. They’re hooked up with VRBO and Homeaway and they are certainly guilty by association. They’ll take your renters payment alright, but good luck getting the funds due you. They will offer up everyu excuse you could ever imagine and the best one is “they are really overloaded with requests” Go figure! People want to get paid for what’s coming to them. this practice of theirs will likely not change until a state brings suit against them. Perhaps under violation of truth in lending laws.
The company hold my guest’s payment without any notice or reason. Called customer service department many times, and no one can give me a reason, just told me they have filed a ticket already, any would contact me once they got the feedback from other department. it is a terrible company. Is there anyway I can get my money back quickly.
This company accepts payments for Homeaway, they mis represent how long it will take to get your funds. I had a guest stay in November and my funds have not been released as of December 17. I was told they hold the funds for 30 days. The real ease the funds another 7 days later. I contacted them asking what I could to expedite the payment I was told I could. Have credit check through their company. I did that then I was told that was for another program they had and my funds will not be released. Very deceptive…. If you have other choices please use another provider. Pay pal , square what ever do not use this option on homeaway or vrbo.
This company will not properly represent you if you have a client dispute charges on their credit card. I had a “guest (Tim Conrad ) check in to my rental property who agreed online at the time of booking and again upon arrival in writing that there were no pets and no more than 6 people to be on the property. Shortly after checking in, he had 9-10 dogs in my house and 9 people! I provided the contract as well as photos of the dog pooping in my yard and the extra people and Yapstone allowed his credit card company to take my funds back because we asked them to leave. I lost the income from a fourth of July rental as well as having to pay $200 to have the house cleaned since they had already been all over the beds and the house. I would like to know who would allow someone to stay in their home with 9-10 dogs and 9 people rather than the agreed upon 6.
This company will take your funds from you paying guests for a vacation rental and not release them to you for extended periods of time as in weeks. I would highly recommend not using yapstone in Walnut Creek California but using a different merchant banking service with reputable practices such as Costco credit card merchant processing or directly with a bank such as Wells Fargo or US Bank that does credit card merchant processing.
Their website provides dark-pattern. It NEVER shows how much you have to pay for the service until you waste a lot of time entering your personal information and credit card information.
At the last minute, it tells you that you have to pay over $16 dollars to make a payment.
WHY NOT PUT THAT INFORMATION RIGHT ON THE FIRST PAGE OF THE WEB SITE?
I would not recommend this site. Stay way from it.
This company is fraudulent they just stole $2625 out of my account…. Beware
Hi Patty,
Can you provide some more detail about your experience? Otherwise, this review will be deleted.