Cleartrip — cancellation absurdity

My hotel booking through cleartrip (Trip id : [protected]) was unable to be completed for the hotel i had booked, because the hotel had changed hands in the time since i paid the deposit till the final payment was due. I was offered a choice to switch my booking to another hotel, or receive a refund of my deposit.

When i rang back, to ask for a cancellation and deposit refund, i was told i could not get a refund unless i paid the remainder of the full payment (Remember, this is for a hotel i could no longer book) and then they would give me a refund on cancellation (Less rs 100). But if i just cancelled the booking without paying the remainder of the full amount, they would not refund me the deposit.

This was so ridiculous, and after i had spent hours on the phone trying to resolve this problem previously, there was no way i could trust cleartrip to refund me anything - why would i risk a further rs 11, 958 when they had been so infuriatingly incompetent in helping me resolve this problem (Except the very first man i spoke with - he at least did everything to help and offered the deposit refund, but i needed time to work out the best response to this confusion. It was all the subsequent support and backend staff who cause such a problem).