Complete Scam
I fear this is a complete Scam. You book an apartment for the night and in the small print (no-where on payment pages) it notes you must pay £500 deposit. I have been on BOOKING.com for years and not seen anything of this kind. We were refused cancellation for this and pushed with 20 text messages to pay or cancel so they could rebook and still charge us. It is a complete scam. Any deposits should be clearly noted in the payment info nowhere else unless it’s a duplicate.
To add to this financial concern, the booking was to ‘pay at the property’ and they tried to take the money out of my account two days before. The company should make it clear in the main information and payment terms and prices of financial conditions, They also noted in the text messages to ‘pay the deposit like everyone else’ , also, ‘you will get the money released the day of check out’ whereas now looking in the small print it notes 5-7 days. Which is it. I fear this is a SCAM.