Great questions, Pete. I've been asking them for awhile now. Certainly there should be more protections for owners from HA since, as you said, we don't know until after the payment is made. I don't need them to verify the names on the reservation and credit card are the same, though, I just need them to verify that the cardholder is the one making payment. Many times a reservation for my VR is made by parent and paid for by grandparent. Sometimes payments are split, so the deposit is paid by one party and the balance by another. Either way, as you said, I don't know until after payment is made. HA definitely needs to step up these protections.

This is why you need to have a rental agreement and whoever pays is one of the names on the agreement even if they're not coming.

And, no, the checkbox "I accept the rental agreement" is not going to hold up in any legal situation, so it's also likely not going to hold up in a chargeback, since the issuing bank for the guest's card is the one that has to adjudicate the chargeback and they don't know nothin' about no checkboxes.

I require govt id from anyone making a cc payment online.

Until we are provided adequate protections, I will continue to have agreements signed, initialed and id submitted

I tell anyone booking my house that the person who pays must be the person who signs the contract and I must have a copy of their photo ID. If more than one person is paying than all paying parties must do the same they - sign my contract and provide a copy of their photo ID.

Remember that a while back though they made it so the payment could be split up between multiple people? So, in effect you could have several different credit card payments. What if just one of them decided to do a charge back. I really didn't like that idea, especially since some may not have made the reservation or signed the contract. (no signed contract, no agreement). We start getting into a really grey area when we allow for third party payments, but when I ask.....yapstone says it happens all the time. Parents paying for adult children, Grandparents paying etc. It is a bit unnerving to me in this day and age of identity theft.

The name on the contract and booking must match the CC for me.

I went to search and found this post.  Wish I had seen it sooner.

I had a chargeback and LOST because the the lady who charged the credit card refused it saying she did not recognize the charge.  She paid the booking but her daughter signed the Agreement.  Yapstone sided with the guest and "there you go". 

I now in my acceptance email tell the guests when signing the Agreement the name must match the credit card name.  

I recently posted about my $1,200 chargeback a month ago from some supposedly Brazilian guys who didn't understand any English (I now have reason to believe that is false and that I did all the extra work and translation for this booking for nothing).

I never had a chargeback in 14 years so this freaked me out., how easily someone can just claim they know nothing about a charge to their card.  I do feel like asking for photo ID can be off-putting to the guest but that may be the only recourse.  I am installing Ring doorbells and cams so I can prove who stayed (they claimed upon arrival that the cardholder wasn't coming until a few days later and so when these guys showed up what am I to do?  I probably should have asked for cash and refunded the card.

I figured I didn't have to check for card payments made thru websites like HomeAway, TripAdvisor, AirBnB, etc., just the ones I make directly.  Perhaps that too is naive.  If I don't know them then I definitely will get photo ID for guests booking directly (I run and charge the card).  I'm thinking with the combo of photo ID and cams I might be okay, but then people can look similar (even if not the cardholder) or different (even if they are, especially if the ID is ages old, like mine).

I'm thinking of requiring a (non-contestable) bank transfer for last-minute bookings, which the one I got scammed by was (still waiting to see if win or lose).  Nowadays you can transfer from one person's bank to another with absolutely no fees on either end (using Quick Pay or Zelle, etc.).  Also there are great services like low-fee TransferWise for international guests and fair/lower market currency exchange rates.  I feel is would be much harder for a client to contest a charge for reservations made far in advance as the would have had ample time to report a truly illegitimate card (or report card stolen, etc.). For those cases I would not ask for photo ID.  So if last-minute I will ask for photo ID if they must pay by card, or have them pay via bank transfer instead.  Of course if there is plenty of time before check-in they can always mail a check or money order directly.

I don't see anyway to prevent bookings under a name different than card paid with, since we're all accepting instant bookings now and also there are many legit reasons one family member or friend may pay for another.  Just wondering if I should ask for both photo ID's of booking party and the one staying, if not the booking party.