Appaling Service

I have used this platform to book stays in gauteng and north west before with no problems before, but the beginning of this year I used it to book an apartment for my parent in the western cape and it was despicable! I booked “Cozy corner apartment muizenburg” through booking.com for 20/01/25 until the 27/01/25 but when my parents arrived, they stayed for only one night. They requested the owner to assist them with their basic facilities and he/she responded by moving them to another place and paying that place for only one night. For rest of they stay they had to look for another accommodations and paying again without being refunded by the apartment owner of “cozy corner apartment muizenburg” The host went ahead to write a false report on this platform and went to the point of being rude and insulting to the guests. I reached out to booking.com trying to enlist their assistance with a refund since I paid for nothing at this point, and their only reply was that they spoke to the owner who was refusing to refund us. They say the agreement is between us and that **** of a business, yet the payment was facilitated through their platform. It is March now, and there hasn’t been any further response from booking.com my money went down the drain. Please don’t expect this business to protect you from vultures and ****** that they promote on their platform, you’re better off using a different method of booking.