Never will we use booking.com again

My wife is a Genius member on Booking.com and we use them frequently for business and leisure travel. We have never ever complained about any of the accommodation we have stayed in over the years. On Friday morning (01-10-2021) we booked a 2 night stay at Viewpoint Lodge in Hazeyview, Mpumalanga. The page for Viewpoint on Booking.com's website showed well finished log cabins, the rooms were clean and well kept. On arrival we were led into a old house on the side of the property with furniture that looks like it came from a run down pawn shop. There was some kind of vinyl sticker covering half the kitchen counter, obviously to hide the state of the counter. The pots were filthy and the one was so dented and burnt black, it really is not some thing anyone would put their food in. The manager showed us were the bug spray is kept and said "here is the doom, incase you need it" basically admitting that there are insects roaming the place. The ceiling fan was caked in so much dust and dirt, it obviously hadn't been cleaned in years. The linen was worn and the curtains were dreary. The mats on the floor in the kitchen were filthy. The cupboards were falling apart. The list goes on. My wife's phone was dead and I wasn't getting reception on my network so we had to charge her phone in order to find alternative accommodation. There was no way any self respecting human being will sleep in that hole of a lodge. We called the manager and she said she will ask the owner to phone us. She then phoned us back and said the owner does not want to talk to us and that 'this is the unit we booked'. Keep in mind that there are no photos of this **** hole on Booking.com's website so how could we have chosen that unit. The only photos are of the log cabins. Clearly this is a ruse to get more bookings and then dump people into the hell house at the back.

We moved on to our alternative accommodation at about 19:00 and then went to go find food. We then called Booking.com and informed them of what had happened. We asked for a refund and we emailed them photos of all the dead insects and filthy rooms. They said they will investigate. Today they have emailed my wife to inform her that the manager said we were very happy with the unit and we even had a bath there. The only way you would get me in that bath is if you drowned me in it. This a huge lie and the manager even said she understands what we are talking about.

As a business owner myself, with confidence in my products, I handle any complaint personally as I have nothing to hide from. But this man didn't put photos of that unit on Booking.com because he knows the condition of the place. He refused to speak to us because he had no excuse for allowing guests to be placed in that unit. There are homeless shelters that are cleaner that that **** hole.

Booking.com is so disrespectful to long term clients with no prior complaints. To now question the integrity of our complaint and to argue over 'he said/she said' after photographic evidence was supp**** is absolutely shocking service.

To stand by a lodge owner who is deliberately misleading clients with false advertising, and only using photos of nice units and then placing them in a filthy dump is not only *********, its *******.

We will not be using Booking.com again, especially being on the top tier of clientele, this is the treatment we get. It's one thing to not investigate the standards of their lodges and hotels, but another to thing to take the side of an owner who is breaking the law.

Never use booking.com! They have no loyalty to their clients. And what you see advertised on their website is not what you are going to get.