Would you pay for a serviced apartment stay via PayPal?

[wondabar]

I booked a serviced apartment in Portugal via Booking.com and there is meant to be free cancellation until two weeks before my stay. The company have sent me a few requests to pay the entire cost of the apartment via PayPal a d say they will cancel the booking if I don't pay within 24 hours. The apartment has no reviews as it says it is new. The company has a few other apartments on Booking.com but they all seem to have 1 or 2 reviews.
When I have booked previous apartments on Booking.com they have my credit card details on file and charge my card if I don't cancel before the chargeable period. I don't know whether I am being cynical but charging me for the entire cost of the stay via PayPal months' ahead doesn't seem right. I am worried it is a scam. Can anyone tell me whether this is common practise from BDC?

I had this with a stay on booking.com this year and it was a scam. The hotel had their login hacked and the messages were sent via booking.com's genuine message service so it looked legitimate. Got a message the next day saying it was a scam. I'll see if I can find the message!

Hopefully these pictures send. The messages in the actual app on the message section have expired but I can see the emails I got about them. I then viewed the same messages in the app.

This is a scam - had it for a booking a few weeks ago and checked it out at the time.

www.theguardian.com/money/2023/oct/23/bookingcom-customers-targeted-by-scam-confirmation-emails

(Sorry for long link)

I questioned them as to why they needed the payment via PayPal and the company got back to me with this. Does it look legit or am I being scammed?

Scam. Choose a different apartment
Why risk it?

It's a scam, they'll have been hacked again. Ignore it.

We are due to go away to Manchester in a couple of weeks so just today my husband logged into booking to check some details and found he had a message sent in December asking him to click on a link and pay, looked to be the same.
He said it looked dodgy and thought it was a scam and he has already paid.

Fortunately I cancelled it without paying a penny. Such a shame that scammers exist