[wccrawford]

I don't think it was booking.com, but I had something similar happen to me in Japan. My wife picked out a nice-looking hotel on one of those aggregate sites, and I went to one of the sites that had the listing for it. I even double-checked the address to be sure.

After booking, my wife noted that the email they sent referenced an apartment instead of the hotel. Sure enough, it was different... It was across the street!

I got instructions to go to the other side of Akihabara, up a few floors, and get a key from some office there.

In the end, we chose to pay for the first day of the "hotel room" and cancel the booking, going to a real hotel instead.