Had you paid the deposit and found the RV was already rented, then you would have a claim against the RV owner.
As it is, you made a promise to rent the RV and you failed to live up to your promise. The deposit you forfeit is a small price to pay. You could have been made to pay the entire cost upfront and then forfeit the whole amount.
Thank the owner that he trusted you enough to only require a deposit down, and not full payment.
SD
What did the contract say that they signed? The guy may be heartless, but he's probably on solid legal ground.
Sorry for your luck. But thems the breaks. Maybe insurance would have been a good idea.
They could have insured against the loss by purchasing trip cancellation insurance. Instead, they want to make a businessman eat the loss instead of them. I suspect that your friends are good democrats. They enter into a contract and then don't want to honor the terms. Why do they think a deposit was required. The businessman has been burned before. They are lucky that he didn't bill them for the entire rental.
Sorry to hear about your friend's ill health. Fortunately they detected his medical problem before he went to Alaska and possibly had a heart attack there!
I don't think the RV man is heartless. It is peak season and he is already compromised. He is losing out on the rental. Both sides lose, not just your friend.
What is the dates of the rental and the unit size?
I am near Anchorage.
Deposits are deposits.. non refundable deposits are non refundable deposits... may not be compassionate of the company, but if their deposits are non refundable, then they have every right not to refund them, regardless of the reason.
The last frontier is really dead when you hear about a ***hat like this. But then it is "Los Anchorage" as it is known up there. the rest of the state is nothing like that place.
My husband and I rented an RV several years ago....we had to put 1/2 the amt of the total rental price down, as a deposit....the people who ran the rental place, told us very adamantly, that before we sent them our deposit, and signed a paper, sealing up the reservation, that we should be aware, ,that if for any reason whatsoever, we had to cancel, our deposit was absolutely NOT refundable...they wanted to make sure that we understood that, before we committed ourselves...
I can understand your friends being upset as it is very expensive to rent RVs, ,and the deposit, I am sure, ,was a very hefty expense to have to lose that deposit...