Almost all payment gateways have some form of AVS that is turned on by default.   AVS is an anti-fraud tool that checks the billing address entered on the payment form with the billing address registered with the credit card.  Address Verification Service is a great tool if you are selling a physical or a virtual good on your website as it reduces orders from individuals using stolen credit cards, etc.

However, in the vacation rental industry my experience has been that AVS is unnecessary with no real benefit from its use.   Guests renting a vacation rental rarely are going to use a stolen credit card to reserve the unit.  For the most part, a vacation rental is not a last minute rental.  Thus the odds are great that when the thief would show up to rent the unit, he’d get busted for credit card fraud.   Credit card fraud works because the Internet allows the thief to remain anonymous, hidden behind proxies and redirects, to the point that only special labs have the ability to trace where the transaction originated. In the majority of instances those transactions originate from sophisticated networks of hackers based in Africa and China.   Far away from the grips of US laws.

I am advocating that vacation rental owners TURN OFF the AVS settings within their payment gateway.   I will provide instructions on how to do this at the end of this posting.

Anytime a credit card is entered into the InnFirst.com application, whether it be by a guest making an online booking or a property owner taking a phone reservation, the credit card is run through AVS and validated before a profile is created.    If you are in a hurry and haven’t completely entered the guest’s address or perhaps have a misspelling, the card will get declined and the profile won’t be established.  This can be frustrating to you and frustrating to the guest attempting to make a reservation.

A better solution is to turn off AVS and card validation.  InnFirst.com will still run the card through a card checker algorithm to check for appropriate card length and format.  With AVS and card validation turned off, the profile will be established a the payment gateway with no problem at all.

Here are instructions on how to turn off AVS at the gateway:

Beanstream.com

Authorize.net

Make sure all the boxes are NOT checked:

Card Code Verification is the 3 or 4 digit number (security code) that many merchants now ask for to assure that the purchaser actually has the card present in their hands.  This is probably a good idea to leave on, but you might want to review the settings to make sure they are not too strict that they might otherwise reject a valid charge.

Quantum Gateway

Click on the “Processor Settings” menu item: Configuration » Processing Setting.  Make sure that “Process Transactions as:  Sales” is checked.

I was really surprised  to learn that some acquiring banks won’t underwrite business from vacation rental managers.   Vacation rental owners are ok, but not vacation rental managers.  In a nutshell some underwriters simply won’t underwrite any groups that “accept payments on behalf of others”.  In credit card lingo, when another party accepts a credit card payment on behalf of another, that is called “factoring”.

After doing some research. on the Internet and after talking with some reps, I was again surprised to learn that not a lot of people had much information that could help me find an ISO that would underwrite both new and existing vacation rental managers.  But I persevered and ended up finding three ISOs that would underwrite vacation rental managers.

MerchantPartners.com will underwrite vacation rental managers.  They also have a gateway at: https://www.onlinemerchantcenter.com that appears to support the secure vault feature.  I’ve spoken to the folks at MerchantPartners.com several times and they appear to have all the functionality I need to integrate to InnFirst.com. However, I am still waiting for confirmation from one of their developers as well as pricing from their sales team.

MerchantPartners underwrites through the Royal Bank of Scotland.

GoToBilling.com is a company that ultimately resells through Wells Fargo.   Wells Fargo will underwrite vacation rental managers.   Additionally, GoToBilling offers a gateway service that will soon be integrated into InnFirst.com as they also offer a secure vault.

Please contact me directly at sales@innfirst.com if you are a vacation rental manager interested in obtaining a merchant account and gateway services through one of the companies listed above.