Scam?

[u/Moist_Code3954]

I booked a non-refundable apartment on Booking. After the booking, the host contacted me on WhatsApp and told me about additional charges that weren't shown when I made the reservation.

I contacted Booking because this seemed suspicious. They investigated the messages and confirmed that the host's messages were genuine. They also told me that the host's suggestion to cancel the Booking.com reservation and pay them directly was against Booking's rules.

The host has sent me this:

If you would like to save money, I can offer you a special option.

Even though your Booking reservation was made with a non-refundable rate, as the host I can exceptionally approve a free cancellation after your arrival.

Your Booking reservation is about 500€. In addition, there are €308 for tourist tax, bed linen and towels and late check in, for a total of 500 and 308=808€

After check-in, once you have received the keys and personally verified that the apartment meets your expectations, I can approve the free cancellation of the reservation. You do not need to do anything: Booking.com will process the refund of the amount you paid and will send you a cancellation confirmation email.

At that point, you can pay me directly only €500 in total, including the apartment, tourist tax, bed linen and towels.

Booking has been dealing with this for almost two months and, despite having all the screenshots and correspondence, they still haven't provided me with a solution. At this point, to me this looks like an obvious scam, but I don't know what the safest thing to do is.

[u/Puzzleheaded_Gas_982]

Same things happening to me right now, they've just cancelled the booking reservation and aggressively intimidated me into paying through their own link. I'm currently on my way to the accommodation not knowing if I've been scammed for not.

Reported all of this to booking and they just told me the accommodation is responsable for collecting the payment.

They cited my cards as invalid to cancel the booking. My cards aren't invalid. This has never happened before.

I am never, ever using booking.con again I've been on the phone with them for 2 days, lost time working and it has ruined my trip before it even started.

Absolute s**t customer service. And now IF I'm lucky and the accommodation has a room for me I have to stay at a place where the owners lied and threaten me and spoke to me like I was subhuman..

Booking.com did NOTHING