Kayak.com Stay away -- they book through Travelocity and don't assign seats, Internet

I just did a search on Kayak for flights to Italy through Kayak and thought, mistakenly, that when they offered to allow you to book through Kayak.com that you were booking through the airline -- they used to transfer you to the airline to book.  Instead, I ended up booking through Travelocity, who informed me they could not assign me seats.

The email told me to to call the airline to book the seats.  Undisclosed in the booking info, to get seat assignments I had to pay $232 to British Airways, on top of the $3,000 for the tickets.  Nowhere did Travelocity or Kayak tell me there would be an additional charge to get seat assignments more than 24 hours before my flight.  TOTAL RIPOFF.  

I am never using either Travelocity or Kayak again.  Service means nothing from them -- stay away.