Why can’t you pass booking to a mate?
pass to a mate -> pass/sell to someone on STW -> sell on ebay to random.
It starts getting messy as soon as it’s possible to muddy who turned up on the day and whose cc details they have on file to pay for lost/ not returned/ unreasonably borked kit.
“It wasn’t me, I wasn’t even there”
They’re letting people rag around on thousands of pounds worth of kit for not much money in return. I don’t think their rules are unfair. They could be more flexible for a bit more ball-ache their end, but it’s not a huge amount of money.