Rental systems and availability calendars

[taurus]

Hello everyone ,

I'm just starting up as a rental owner, currently building a website for my holiday home in Turkey. I have 2 questions:

Q1: I've been browsing this forum for info on credit card payment processors, among them Rentalsystems.
Although it may be practical to have the whole renting process on autopilot (as it seems with RS) I have the following question:

- How do you "screen" your guests when they have the opportunity of booking automatically (assuming that they book with no enquiries)? I mean... if I don't get a chance to talk to them before they book, I could be getting the wrong kind of renters..? Would appreciate your feedback on this (BTW I don't want to use PayPal, so RS still seems to be the only option...).

Q2: I'm looking for availability calendar + booking form (in case I don't go for RS). Would like to know if anyone has used the calendars of:
shared-house.com
booking-tracker.com

Would appreciate any suggestions on calendars/forms.

[Musetta]

I do not use Rental Systems for just that reason - I don't really want people to be able to book without contacting me by either email or phone! I also don't like that they hold your money until after the booking is completed (or did when I checked - haven't looked into them for a few years.) I had tech issues as well with the site when I trying to load a property - was all just a huge pain-in-the-bottom. I use PayPal's "virtual terminal" which, although costs me $30/month, allows me to process credit cards directly - if you don't like the PayPal name/brand, there are plenty of other companies that you can apply to process credit cards. Some people love RentalSystems...I guess I'm just too much of a control freak.

[taurus]

It's Paypal's reputation for freezing funds that keeps me away from them. And it seems to be the same with 2co.com. Maybe I will still have to try. BTW according to Paypal, their virtual terminal is only available to US-based customers.
Thanks

[Hells Bells]

I use an automated booking system, however, the majority of my bookings still come from people who enquire first.
It is nice to have the option available though, and I did wake up to a booking last Sunday morning for the end of August, which is always a difficult one to let. I have not had any bookings from anyone unsuitable, and still have the option of refusing the booking and returning the deposit.
Paypals reputation for freezing funds may in this case be unfounded. I am sure we discussed this recently, and we concluded from the terms and conditions, that they wouldn't be able to do so for an apartment/villa/gite rental, only for tangible goods, such as ebay items. viewtopic.php?t=12305&highlight=paypal .
Rentalsystems will release your money I think , but only for a fee, otherwise you have to wait until the rental is completed. They also charge booking fees to your guests.