I did what I normaly do not do and I read the post on AR.

I think in this case the client did default, but with good reason. A deposit is there to cover the expenses that you must incur before the client arrives.

This hunt was booked on short notice and I do not have more details, the client was due for a bussiness trip in RSA.
I have done a few of this short notice hunts and in all cases the client only paid his day fees on arrival, believe me their are risks involved. A hunter once booked with me a week before the hunt and we agreed on everything, I have met him at the airport, accompanied him to the guest house and made final arangements. I have spoken to him the next morning and checked up on everything. I was on my way to pick him up, I was almost at the guest house, when he called me and told me he had to cancel because he could not complete his bussiness due to the poor service in RSA. I had arrangements that I cancelled to accomodate him on the hunt. What was the end of the story, he got another deal with another outfitter. This guy was bullshitting me, I insisted that he pay me at least 50% of the dayfees and I appreciate that he did that. There are bullshitters everywhere.

Legally the outfitter have a foot to stand on and I am sure he did put work in to arrage the hunt on short notice, but here it was cicumstances that prevented the client from doing the hunt.

I still would have refunded the client, but I would also ask him if he cannot try and resell the hunt to put us both in a win win situation.

Any person who is of the opinion that we as outfitters/ ph's makes a lot of money, got it very much wrong. The economic climate across the world had a huge impact on the amount of hunting trips to Africa. The cost of keeping your equipment in tip top shape for the clients cost a lot of money. Most of us do what we do because we love it, not for the money. If I had to live only on the profits I make out of hunting I would have been bankrupt a long time ago.

I wish we could go back to the days where gentleman could seal a deal on their word, and they treated each other with dignity and respect. It is sad that contracts became the norm and the humanity part got lost.