Is booking.com a Scam?

Technically booking.com tries not to be a scam, but their system allows people to get scammed and they don't really do much to help you because they give you a different agent every time you contact them and they just go through a script and you are given the runaround over and over and over again. Allo Housing is definitely a scammer so do not use any of their properties

In short:

• They gave my credit card information to the property, the property charged my card without my consent for 1500 EUR three months before my arrival to the property, despite the policy states they will not charge me until i arrive. 
• Three times over the course of 2.5 months, the agent at booking.com promised me over the phone they will refund me directly and invoice the property but then sends me an email after telling me the property will invoice me, which the property does not. 
• And now they are saying they are going to give me CREDIT on their website. 
• Every time i call, it's a different agent, giving me a rundaround and promising me i won't have to call back and then it gets passed on to a different agent who restarts the goddamn process as if nothing happened before. 
• I spent at least 6 hours dealing between the property, my bank, and booking.com. 
• This whole thing is fucked up. I would avoid using booking.com and Allo Housing is a giant scam.

Here is the play by play

• March 12: made a 7-day booking with Kentish Town by Allo Housing for June 10th - to June 17th - their policy is:
• Charge you 3 days before arrival
• Free Cancellation until June 3rd
• March 13: Allo Housing took almost 1500 EUR out of my bank account
• March 17th: I attempted to contact booking.com over their website and was told by automated message to contact the property directly, which i did over message
• March 18th: 
• The property responded saying they have the right to charge me. When i showed them the policy, they ignored me. 
• I then went to cancel the reservation and asked them to refund me and they said due to the coronavirus, they cannot refund me for another three months and that i need to call booking.com if i have an issue
• I then tried to call booking.com, but got an automated message saying they will not deal with my situation because my booking is too far away
• I attempted to reach booking via twitter and facebook but was provided answers with an autobot just like their website telling me the same thing that i need to contact the property
• I filed a complaint on the booking website
• I filed a complaint to my bank, to which they responded because i voluntarily gave them my credit card information, they will not refund me
• March 28: received a call from booking.com telling me booking will refund me the money and invoice the property, i just need to send booking a proof of charge. I sent this immediately.
• March 30: received email from booking.com that i will get a refund from the property and see it in my account in 10-15 days
• April 21: still did not receive refund and called booking.com, they AGAIN said booking will refund me and directly invoice the property and asked me to send more proof of charge, which i did immediately
• April 22: got another email from booking saying i will get refunded by the property
• May 8: sent booking an email saying i did not get the refund and got a response saying the property will not refund me for another 6 months
• May 9: Called booking.com again and asked wtf is going and they told me this is unacceptable and that i will get the refund from booking and they will invoice the property. I said you already said this to me TWICE and it didnt happen. The guy says, last few times they didnt write in the notes that it was approved by a supervisor, this time he has approval and if i dont get the money from the property within the next 7 days, i will get automatically refunded
• May 18: Called booking.com, first agent told me i need to wait until may 20, then hung up on me. I called back and spent another hour with the second agent who told me rest assured i will get automatically refunded on may 20th, i made him write an email to me confirming that booking will actually refund me.
• May 21: 
• Got an email from booking.com saying the property cannot refund me for another 6 months
• I called them and the agent said they will refund me in the next five days to my booking Wallet - a new system they created, which is essentially giving me a CREDIT on their system. The agent is claiming i will be able to send the credit to my credit card once i receive the credit, but given their track record, it's probably another lie and they are asking for my credit card information in the wallet again!