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.
Related: Phillip’s Top All-Purpose Processor Picks
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Phillip’s Top “High-Risk” Processing Picks
YapStone Bottom Line
YapStone rates as an average merchant services 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 moderate amount of public complaints online. An increasing number of these complaints have been filed by merchants rather than renters, although neither source has tapered off. Merchants are advised to carefully examine all contract terms presented to them.
About Phillip Parker
Hi, I’m Phillip and I’m disgusted by the state of credit card processing in the U.S. and abroad. I believe that the industry has been overrun by people who engage in fraud and deception in order to steal money from hard working business owners. I’ve made it my mission to expose the companies and individuals who engage in predatory marketing, pricing, and contracts, or just provide terrible service. Along with uncovering the bad guys, I’ve also discovered the good guys who do stand out from the status quo. CPO is a website where you will find ratings and reviews of these companies along with advice on how to save money and which service providers consider. Together we can move the industry in a positive direction. If you would like to help support my work, please checkout “Fee Sweep” my eGuide to getting the lowest possible fees when accepting card payments. If you haven’t heard of “interchange” this advice will save you hundreds, even thousands, in processing fees.
Schedule a Consultation with PhillipPhillip’s Merchant Account Rate and Fee Savings Guide
We pay credit card fees with each booking. When a guest canceled without required 30 days notice, Yapstone requested information from me. They say they don’t have access to the correspondence or the cancellation policy. I had to contact Home Away to get their copy of their correspondence with the guest. Anyway, it was not sufficient to keep the deposit. So now what do we do? I paid $3000.00 in a illegal chargeback. Which includes an additional $500 to Yapstone. Anyone else have illegal chargebacks that benifits Yapstone? Why are we paying fees if we don’t have representation?
RentPayment – Powered by YapStone™ (NMLS #1488912)
This place is horrible. I’ve owned houses all my life, but since I only planned to be in the state I am living in for about 4 years or so, I decided I would just rent. Well, the apartment complex I moved into uses this service. The first month, they had issues when I submitted my account information. They finally paid, but it was after my very short due date, so I got charged an extra $100 dollars by my apartment complex. The next month, it was supposed to be easy since my information was already in their system. Well, there was some kind of technical issue on their side. I thought everything went through, but after me finding out there was no payment sent, I called them, they assured me they would take care of it and that I would not ONCE AGAIN get another $100 late fee, they came back after the fact to the apartment complex saying they were not sure, so I got charged again. I don’t know about anyone else using this service, but I cannot afford to use their useless payment and support system anymore. I almost think they do this to help the management companies make more profit at the expense of the renters. Renters basically have no say in anything when there are big companies running the show together.
Useless company. Cannot handle payments. Cannot be contacted. They keep sending me notifications for properties I am not associated with. Their “knowledge database” gives you advice it does not work. They do not allow to reset my password for whatever reason. They behave like scammers not like honest business.
I am a homeowner who lists my vacation property through VRBO. They use Yapstone as their payment processor. They extracted $843 from my account stating a guest complained. Indeed he did not and I have emails from him stating that he was there and enjoying it. I used our corresondence in order to show Yapstone that they have the wrong person/wrong property. 2 months later I’m still waiting, and am told I have 1 more month to wait until the “cardholders issuing bank” decides whether or not to refund the money. Why should any company be able to extract money from your account and then say they have no accountability for what happens? Still waiting for response, but I suspect fraud.
I have never dealt with a company of idiots like these people. I am listed on vrbo I was unable to send the
change form for my new bank account thru the computer, it kept sending it back, so i filled out the form they asked for and made 2 copies along with a voided check attached to each. sent one to Walnut Creek address and one to Ireland address. I spent 2 weeks trying to get this done with them on the phone. Last nite a 2:30 am, my phone rang twice, It woke me up and i finally was afraid it was a family emergency NO it was Yap Stone from Ireland, then a email followed. The situation still has not resolved, i have made a complaint to vrbo who uses Yapstone to transfer $$ I never want to deal with this company again. I will stop using the vrbo on line booking if this is not rectified asap and go back to using my independent merchant for my bookings. Vrbo will loose their booking fees and i will be done with this nightmare…..
Everyone who has been ripped off by YapStone needs to file a complaint about them to the CA Attorney:
https://oag.ca.gov/contact/consumer-complaint-against-business-or-company
They claim to use advanced fraud detection techniques but they don’t even check the name on the credit card; they don’t provide any information to the property owner so that the property owner can check the credit card against the ID, and they make their money from chargeback fees.
By far one, Yapstone is the most unorganized companies ever. I got a 1099K from them for a rent house that went to the wrong address They can’t give me back up for their numbers, They didn’t turn it in on time and when I called them and they had the rudest person on the phone in the history of customer service. Unfortunately Vrbo is affiliated with them and they are the payment service contractor.
I have to use VRP due to the fact they are the only allowed Gateway for Homeaway. They are quite honestly the worst. I called them on a void for a refund on Tuesday. I explained the urgency in which this needed to be done. I was told they wouldn’t be able to do it and a supervisor would call me back. Today is Friday, the supervisor left me a voice mail today saying it was too late to void the transaction and next time I should call the same day. I am beyond words with this group. They have zero customer service and support is always the same – none. Unfortunately, I have no choice as Homeaway forces Property Managers to use them as the interface between my software and my merchant processing company. Ascent Processing does my actual merchant processing and I love them. If you have a choice I would never recommend them.
I have been an owner customer of VRBO for 6 years. Around 1 year ago, VRBO changed its business model to take a fee per booking,
with them collecting the fees from traveler. In January of 2017, they sent me a request saying someone was interested in staying in my
property, and asking me to accept their inquiry. I did. They stayed in the property for around one week, and VRBO collected their payment. Later on, the card holder challenged the charge, and I have just been told by VRBO’s payment processing arm, the charge was fraudulent. VRBO payment processing arm is saying I am responsible for this, while they are the ones who found the traveler and
collected his funds, and should have done a better job in identity verification.
People who have left similar complaints should consider whether the bank card actually instigated a chargeback. Yapstone gives you no evidence of the chargeback – who’s to say they don’t instigate a fake chargeback just to claw the money back from your account. You just don’t see the number of similar complaints in reviews of other processing companies. Time for a class-action lawsuit?
This company should be reported and shut down. They try to hide negative reviews like they hide their service fees. Nobody should ever trust this company with their money or personal information. RUN, fast and far, if your told you have to use them.
DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY AS YOUR MERCHANT ACCOUNT. THEY WILL NOT FIGHT FOR YOU ON CHARGES BACKS.
If you want a Merchant Account that will not fight for you on fraudulent charge backs, then you found the right company. Their success rates is barely 5%.
Most of the time, they don’t even submit the claim to the credit holder’s bank. They provide no documentation from the bank when the charge back is declined. They want you to file a “Pre-Arbitration for $300” because that when they make their money. And guess who overseas the Pre Arbtration. You guessed it? Yapstone itself. For Vacation Rent Payment aka Yapstone, there is no incentive to protect you and do their job. It’s not a scam. It is just fraudulent behavior.
READ OTHER REVIEWS. IT’S ALL OVER THE NET.
Very poorly run organization. This is the 3rd year we are not able to get our 1099s.. which we must file our taxes by March 15th. NO ONE seems to be able to provide an acceptable answer. The ONLY response I get is that someone will get back to me. It’s been a month now. Ridiculous.
Am seriously looking for another company with a 5.0 rating (or close).
Ozlem Tezveren
Jan 17, 11:22 AM PST
Hello Ruth,
I have received the outcome of the investigation and i see that it is in favor of your company vrbo, payment process center yapstone, credit company of the guest and the guest himself.
How fair is that!
Vrbo allows the profile on its site. Which in this case is a criminal guest! who used a stolen card to make reservation through yapstone payment services who stayed one night in my house and left plenty of evidences of illegal activities such as drugs left in the house that i tracked down, documented by pictures who also took my keys with him, and got lost. As a result i had to change my door key system altogether. Which i reported both incidents to vrbo and insurance services.
So in all off this steps above there is two parties that are not liable to this scam . That is the card holder and the owner of the property.
I understand the credit company that wants to protect their customer rights and reimbursing the amount to the guest’s account.
And you?
Look it is clear that i have no wrong doing on this and it is your company whose poor screening system allows a criminal to stay in my house and who also accepts the form of payment.
From your discouraging response i see that it would be more of a waste of my time and my money to go arbitration.
So instead of your advice of pursuing this matter on my own through enforcement and legal action i will choose to pursue this poor handling and the while case by reporting this incident to better business bureau and all media outlets such as twitter, facebook, all rental exchange forums that i can think of.
If you look in my vrbo history i have been a good and old client to you who you should also consider to protect. instead you allow all dues and responsibilities of your lacking handling of this misconduct fall on me.
Again how fair and nice of the company that i have worked with so many years.
If there is anything that can be done to reverse or fix this unfortunate situation ?please let me know.
Otherwise see you and social media and all sorts of outlets that i can tell how unfair and wrong your business handlings.
Thanks for your time.
Özlem Tezveren
619 244 5958
[email protected]
Ruth B. (VacationRentPayment)
Jan 19, 3:26 PM PST
Hello Özlem,
I truly apologize for your dissatisfaction.
We here at Yapstone assist you through the chargeback process and provide as much information as we can on the chargeback throughout the case, to better guide you. We also have a fraud team here, who attempts to catch fraudulent bookings and attempts to stop them.
In order for a transaction to be approved the person using the card must have all the correct information. But that does not guarantee that the transaction is legitimate. It is always a good idea for the property owner to proper identify the person who is checking into the property by checking their ID and the debit/credit card that was used for the booking.
Due to the high volume of fraud throughout the payment industry, it is very important for us to have a strong and advanced fraud team and for our property owners to take extra steps to proper identify the person checking in.
I can provide you with helpful tips on what steps you can take to better protect yourself and what to look for to attempt to catch fraud, while our fraud team is also working daily to catch fraudulent bookings.
Below is the link:
http://vacationrentpayment.com/chargeback-best-practices
Best Regards,
Ruth B.
Trust & Safety Chargeback Specialist
866 210 6106
Fax 866-290-4622
I also used Homeaway to rent a vacation rental and also used Yapstone like many others and was the victim of a fraudulent chargeback.
I decided to contest the chargeback and provided the company with all the requested documentation. I had a lot of supporting documentation that is was fraudulent.
On 1/16/17 I received an email notification that my property was found in favor and my account would be credited in 10-14 days. Has this happened to anyone else? Still have not received the money, company does not return emails, can’t reach them by phone.
This is a predatory, deceptive company. Beware of Yapstone. I will never use this company again or homeaway either because of there affiliation with them.]
These people should be in jail.
I am interested in class action suit as well. I discussing recourse with a lawyer now. In the meantime I am telling every vacation owner I know not to use them.
I used Yapstone for 2 holiday homes, only because Homeaway directed me to them ( a red flag in itself-do they get a kick back for each referral? Why no other choice of provider?). Anyway, Yapstone talk of using sophisticated fraud detection techniques on their website. This is simply not the case and they did not identify a basic fraud. Yapstone’s remedy was to reverse the funds out of my bank account (as per their terms and conditions) and leave me no recourse. When I raised this with Yapstone senior management (took ages to crawl my way up to someone who had any decision making capability) they acknowledged their fault but refused to change their operating procedures (or offer me any compensation). What really sucks is that on Yapstone’s website they espouse high values – yet seem happy to ignore customer satisfaction or learn from their (acknowledged) mistakes. This smacks of arrogance and a company that has forgotten its roots. In any market there is a choice-avoid Yapstone if at all possible.
If you are forced to see this merchant account provider through your contract with homeaway you will find they have no reporting tools, limited customer service and a somewhat slack approach to transferring money out to you.
There seems to be no way to reconcile what your guests pay and what you receive. The concept is good, the delivery is shocking.
I am a 5 room Bed & Breakfast, aka very small business. The short of it is a 3 night reservation, on the books for months came and left making false allegations, all that I could demonstrate to be false. Yapstone not only refunded money on the abandoned reservation (she called to say she was on her way) they also refunded her deposit. When I disputed I was told very clearly I could fight but would be charged legal fees of at least $500.00 if I lost the dispute along with any additional costs . Small business has no advocate. Credit card processors will always decide choose the person paying the bill! Despite all my evidence I lost over $600. It may not be much but for a very small seasonal business it hurts. I am in the process of ending my relationship with yapstone. It was an unfair decision but as will all things in our world the litttle guy looses!
Anyone wanting to join in a class action lawsuit against Yapstone, please contact me – this company needs to be stopped!!! I have read through all of the reviews posted on this website for Yapstone. My complaints of my experiences mirror those of previous negative reviews. This is obviously a fraudulent company who makes their profit through the chargeback process. They love to make the vacation rental owner responsible for chargebacks resulting from “fraudulent credit card use” -they are the ones who are responsible for verifying the credit cards used. Any
Yes, A class action law suit would be the right action to take. We need options to process CC and not depend on VRBO or Homeaway on the company or organization they have chosen. I am not allowed the option to remove American Express. I am forced to take it because that is the system Yapstone has set up
I was useing Yapstone for the rent payments on HomeAway UK and, yes, absolutely agree that there is a big issue with the way of how they treat the hosts in case of the Chargeback. The customer services are simply not helping, even there is a clear NO FEE Chargeback case and guest’s actions were unreasonable. Terrible, not egulated services!!!!
I have never been more dissatisfied in a very long time. This is a company who has lost the pulse to meet the needs of its consumers. Why Home Away or VRBO would continue to provide the only choice such as Vacation Rent Payment, Yapstone Inc is confusing. I have spent the last two days on the phone with VRP Yapstone inc as to why they unilaterally took money from my account and payed american express after the guest stayed a glorious 5 days on the beautiful island of Kauai? On average wait time for Vacation Rental payment is over 40 min. And when you do get someone they cannot resolve the issues. No wonder I have had to spend the time researching for someone to hear this concern.
This place is a joke. If you ever have a charge back you will enter a living hell of trying to get your money back. It is a smoke and mirrors. You can never actually talk to someone in this department. I have spent over two months attempting to get my money back from them for a guest that has stayed at my property multiple times and just didn’t understand that VRBO and Homeaway are the same thing. We provided Vacation Rent payment with the bank cancellation of the charge back with in a few days and still two months later no refund. I have not rented my property out since this incident waiting to resolve it so I can switch my credit card payment to another method. STAY AS FAR FROM THEM AS POSSIBLE!!!!!!!!
I agree with all the above negative reviews on HolidayRentPayment, a Yapstone company. I have such a bad and unsafe experience with this company that I decided not to rent my home via HomeAway as long as the financial part is not well and in a safe and trustful way organised.
I have started using Homeaway for my rental properties from 01 October 2016. We received our first reservation 08 october 2016 for check-in 10 October for a large reservation. The payer was not the same of the guest who stayed. Consequently the payer exercised a chargeback, The following are the details after I received the charge back query from HolidayRentpayments part of Yapstone. I questioned
a) Why was the card not subjected to secure code?
verified by Visa / Mastercard Secure Code. The answer was, this is not initiated by Yapstone . However their website shows otherwise
copy of their website:
INDUSTRY-LEADING FRAUD DETERRENCE AND DETECTION
We leverage sophisticated internal monitoring tools and algorithms in
collaboration with industry-leading 3rd party fraud prevention software
to protect our partners from fraud. In addition, the fraud experts on
our Trust and Safety team vigilantly monitor system-wide activity to
mitigate risks and gain valuable insight in user behavior or payments
industry trends.
BANK-LEVEL ENCRYPTION
YapStone encrypts credit card and debit card data in its systems and
from end to end when processing payments. We rigorously monitor and
manage access to transactional data. Our security experts regularly
perform both internal and external reviews of our online payment
processing platform to ensure we continue to meet the highest security
standards set forth by the industry.
This means, the system is supposed to be there but not! it is a sales gimmick in my opinion and large company like this must not allow a system operate without 3d secure check
Anybody uses anybodys card and they can all plan to con the seller afterwards denying ever ordering the goods or services. 3d secure pin will stop all that..
I am looking for other sellers suffered like this so we can get this company to get its act together
I also own a property that I rent through Homeaway. Yapstone now take our payments as it is the preferred option by Homeaway. The customer service provided by this company is beyond poor. No form of communication by them other than to let you know how much they have charged you for the privilege of handling the bookings. I have just had to chase for a week to find out why a payment was being held. I now have the money in our account but no plausible explanation for the delay. I have asked for a complaint to be raised and have still to be contacted by a manager 9 working days later. Poor.
I am the owner of a vacation property and I have rented my apartment through Ownersdirect/Homeaway. Payments are managed through Yapstone, a fancy name for a company that has withholds the rents earned for 30 days for no apparent reason other than “security check” on owners (security check on owners???).
The more plausible reality is that this company is one of the many that are run and owned by blatantly dishonest financiers. The reality is that it banks on interests earned by money that does not belong to it.
Just stay away from Yapstone.
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.
Beware! Second time in 3 years!! This company takes payments from renters on VRBO and does not disburse monies. No reason or warning. I have been on phone to company since August, 75 days and still no resolve, no follow up and no deposits! Word is always ‘ resolving shortly’. Keep track of all money expected because they will short you and not do deposits and no word as to why? Now over $10,000 owed and no response!!
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. :
”
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.