Reservation Counter Travelscape Expedia Very Deceptive Internet

 On June 17th I went to the Country Inn and Suites website to reserve a room to be used in August.  I made the reservation and did not receive a confirmation from the hotel as I usually do.  Today July 8th, I called the hotel directly only to be told that they did not send me a reservation confirmation because I had booked thru Expedia.  This was not the case.  I called Expedia and they did not have a reservation and proceeded to transfer me to another agent whose name or company I could not understand as they were not speaking English.  Although they asked for my credit card number to confirm which I did not give them, they could not find a reservation for me either.  I then went back into my spam mail and found a confirmation from Reservation Counter for the date requested.  I called them (India I believe) and was told that I did in fact have a reservation thru them and that it was fully paid using my credit card.  I did not authorize the use of my credit card for anything more than "holding" the room.  I have done this many times for many hotels and have never been charged until our arrival.  I explained that I had gone on the hotels website and was told that to avoid this in the future I should, "call the hotel directly to make a reservation"  This leads me to believe that they somehow link to the hotel website and portray themselves as legitimate hotels.

I was not advised anywhere that I was booking thru a third party booking system.  It is deceptive and wrong.  I called the credit card company and was given another number to call, the one on my credit card statement that has not been received at my home yet.  I called the number 877-283-5585 and was told that I was the one who gave the credit card information and this is my own doing. 

I hope that others are not so unfortunate.