I'm starting a rental site and I'm not sure how to stop people from renting my product and just stealing it. I know someone could get one of those Visa gift cards and I'm sure there are other ways I can't think of. Does anyone know any service that stops this or some kind of background check program?
What kind of rental? Do you mean an actual tangible kind of like netflixx? If it's digital there are licensing schemes you could you, if it's some sort of media there are DRM options.
Rental? Add some copyright protection on those digital goods, Anything that is like an actual couch, bed, tv, etc, i cant help you there lol.
I think you will certainly need to provide more information here as to roughly what products are you talking about. If it is physically, you can always have the customer put down a deposit which amounts to the cost of the item (if the value is small and moveable) then return the deposit when they return the item. If you are renting out something immoveable like a house then you probably do not need to worry about them moving the house away.
If that is the case, Collect a Deposit which is the cost of the phone and return it to them when they return the phone. So if they ran away with your phones, they would have paid for it.
Its depends upon the services you are going in with. The other things regarding the safety is concerned you need to have the access right like copyright, license policy and many more to have safe and protected business is well.
A lot of companies will pre-authorize or capture the amount of the deposit, to verify funds availability to cover costs in case they don't return the equipment. You charge their rental fee as a separate charge. When they return the equipment, you release the pre-auth either in the full amount or minus any damages. Even if they don't have available credit, you can still "force" the charge because it was pre-authorized. Example 1: Customer A rents an iPhone 5 at $5 day for 5 days with a pre-authorized security deposit of $300. You pre-authorize the card for $325. He uses a credit card with $500 in available limit. Most issuers will still allow him to use the card up to $499 worth of credit. He returns the phone to you, undamaged...so you release the pre-auth of $300 but retain the $25 rental fee. Example 2: Customer B rents an iPhone 5 at $5 day for 5 days with a pre-authorized security deposit of $300. You pre-authorize the card for $325. He uses a credit card with $500 in available limit. Most issuers will still allow him to use the card up to $499 worth of credit. He returns the phone to you, with cracked glass...and according to his rental contract, you charge $125 for damaged glass...so you release $175 of the pre-authorized amount but retain the $25 rental fee plus the $125 damage fee. Example 3: Customer C rents an iPhone 5 at $5 day for 5 days with a pre-authorized security deposit of $300. You pre-authorize the card for $325. He uses a credit card with $500 in available limit. Most issuers will still allow him to use the card up to $499 worth of credit. He doesn't return the phone to you, so you release none of the pre-authorized amount, keeping all $325. Even if any of these customers have less than $325 available credit, when you process the transaction through your virtual terminal or real terminal you will have an option to "Force" a transaction. Doing this will place the charge on their card, taking them over their credit limit if need be. But you get your money, as long as it's pre-auth'd.