Booking.com — Cancellation related to false information

The issue that I have experienced was: I booked a room with a hotel called "Hotel Torres del Mar" via booking.com. Upon confirmation, I notice that almost all reviews show that the hotel has been trapping tourists using deceptive pictures. I immediately raised my concerns over this to the hotel but instead of answering my question, the hotel immediately took my money from the credit card I saved, and came back to me with a delayed response telling me that tourists who posted the reviews misunderstood general pictures for the rooms. I have checked other portals such as Expedia and Google Map, and I am pretty sure that reviews on all these different platforms have been pointing out the same thing that the hotel is using fake pictures, among its many other problems in aspects of sanitation, security, rudeness, electric wires exposure on the shower, and trying to scam the tourists for money. All these comments are well-written by authentic real users from worldwide. In order to avoid further risks and unpleasantness, I requested the hotel to cancel my booking and refund the amount of money they have just took a few minutes ago (it is still 4 days before check-in). But the hotel replied with again a delayed response saying that I have missed the 1 hour cancellation period (which is unreasonably short anyway), and they refuse to communicate with me, telling me to contact booking.com. I contacted booking.com but was only replied with my request for cancellation denied, and they cannot do anything about this. By the time, 20 hours have passed since I proposed my request. I feel the hotel is only intentionally delaying everything so that cancellation would be less possible. This behavior only strengthened my impression that the hotel is trying to fish tourists and rob them. I actually already feel unsafe if I would have to stay there. I am only left with the option between staying with the trapping hotel which I do not trust, or giving up to its deceptive and bully behavior by feeding them with the $165 they have taken for the reservation. I understand the reservation rule is to protect the guests to secure a room, but this hotel is obviously making misuse of such mechanism. Moreover, I would like to question the rules of booking.com, which says it cannot do anything in this incident given all above facts that prove this is a scam. I feel the website is not protecting the vulnerable consumers but only the interests of hotels, even obviously dishonest hotels. Although reviews accumulated for many years all display that the hotel has been deceiving and mistreating its consumers. I feel been forced to walk into such a trap even though I have already discovered immediately after the booking, and communicated with all these different parties. While booking.com only acts to protect and support the fraud and robbing of its hotel users by replying to consumers that there is nothing it can do. Note that pictures serve as the most important information source for making decisions in an Internet business like this, and booking.com has been ignoring the complaints over deceptive pictures for many years. When incidents happen, it does not do anything to help the consumer but comply with the hotel, despite that the website is aware of what is the essence of this incident.

It occurred on: 28/07/2021

This meant that I am only left with the option between staying with the trapping hotel which I do not trust, or giving up to its deceptive and bully behavior by feeding them with the $165 they have taken for the reservation a few minutes ago. I find there is no way to complain about such unfairness and make things right.

I would like booking.com to cancel my reservation with full refund, and fix the deceptive pictures, and give an honest description and rating of the hotel (and make the information obvious) so that there will be no other victims in the future. It could perhaps also review its measurements and procedures to protect consumers against such trapping hotels.

My Booking Reference [protected]