Booking.com spoils my booking and cost my family a vacation

Booking.com spoils my booking and cost my family a vacation. I paid R8300 for a booking and instead they sent me a message to say "Booking not confirmed, refund processed and will be completed in 7 to 12 days". I found this very stupid and unthoughtful. I needed a vacation and not a refund. Within 6 days, I will be back at work. No one called to indicate that a booking could not be confirmed and to find out if I would be interested in alternative destinations. That was very unprofessional and would have cost me business if this was a business trip. I need all of you to be cautious and do bookings yourselves to avoid such dissappointments. I spoke to a few consultants and all promised to look into the matter and come back to me, none did, it's just a way of getting rid of a client that they landed in trouble and move to the new one.