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What is preventing them from placing a hold for the full price, then charging the card if the item is not returned? They get the same verification that they can be reimbursed if the item is not returned, but cannot make an arbitrary charge later on.

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I would guess that for a large set of combinations of loaned items and customers’ typical credit card limits this would probably lead your customer to quickly hit his card limit and thus to a lot of frustration.

(Also, in many cases the potential ex-post charges are unknown and theoretically unlimited at the time of purchase, think e.g. of a car rental company wanting to charge you for your speeding tickets.)

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