1 Star too much

My fiance and I are extremely disappointed and frustrated with Booking.com As frequent travelers, we no longer feel safe and protected with the booking service of Booking.com and will no longer be using your services.

On June 12th, me and my fiance were booked to check-in at Harbour View Apartments in Cape Town. After a long 17 hour drive from Pretoria, I have requested early check in at Harbour View Apartments so we can get some rest, we were told that it will be arranged for us. Upon arrival, already from the outside things did not look right as the area looked extremely unsafe, luckily I have also requested secure private parking as was advertised during the booking process. This was yet again false advertising and there was no secure private parking and we had to leave our car outside in the road. They did however also mention they had 24h security on patrol, to which we later saw that is was yet again false. No secure parking, no security. We then decided to still give it a chance as we were very tired from our trip and just wanted to rest. Front desk had no idea who we were and told us we should contact the lady we booked with. I then contacted her and she told us that we will not be able to check in yet as they are busy cleaning our room as we speak and we will have to come back at 3pm, this was at roughly 11:30am. We then returned at 3pm, got our keys and proceeded to our room. As soon as we walked into the room, we couldn't believe what we saw. The room was not cleaned, dirty bin, empty pizza boxes on the counter, dirty dishes in the sink, bed was messy and not made, bathroom was a mess, the list goes on. After requesting a refund from the property, they just started ignoring my messages. After a 17 hour drive, another 4 hour wait until check in, now we were in Cape Town without accommodation in the rain. I reached out to Booking.com support and they were not helpful at all. During my conversations with Booking.com support to report the property and ask for a refund, I dealt with the names Ma Cecilia L., Mai M., Yasmine m., Poussy a., Greta T. Paula P., Marina V., Alex A., and Sevavilashini S. to whom none was helpful. They just said the property is unreachable and that they need to respect to policy of the property. How can anyone feel safe and protected using the services of Booking.com? Why then not just book directly through the property? The most they did was offer me credit for R400 or so to which I also did not receive. I also asked what action will take place against the property for this to which they never rep**** and also never responded to my last message.