I found a rental on Redweek.com for a Harbour Lakes unit. Is there a way for me to call an verify that the owner is a member in good standing before signing the contract or do we have to do a 3 way call with the owner?
With Orlando weeks, you can lookup the deed on the Orange County Comptrollers website. You can search by the owners name. Though that only tells you if they actually own a week, doesn't indicate if they have reserved what you are renting. Best to do that after your name is added to the reservation.
Verifying the deed and the reservation is good to weed out an obvious scammer, but then you just have to trust them. Verifying they haven't sold their ownership does not prevent them from selling it later. There is also no way to prevent an owner from changing the reservation after you confirm it.
True - but there is no reason you can't re-verify your reservation a month before check-in and a day before check-in, as well.