Pay before you stay??

I would like to share this incident that I have encountered recently...

I am going for the MSA meeting this coming April in Langkawi. The venue is in Awana Langkawi but it is fully booked by the MSA secretariat. They offer other hotels. I have no choice but choose one cheaper hotel, Aseania Resorts Hotel, Langkawi which costs 150RM per night. I called and made the booking... it was not a pleasant first impression... it took so long for the operator to answer my call, and when I said I would like to make the booking, they transfered my call to the hotel reservation which again put me on hold for 15mins. Then, after I mentioned that am attending the MSA, they passed me to the person in charged, and I was told that I have to fax in the hotel reservation with my particulars and credit card details. As I have previous made hotel reservations with my credit card and there were no fault so far, so I faxed and made the hotel reservations.

Two days ago, I received my credit card statement. I was shocked that the hotel has charged me the full amount of 3 days stay even before I'm going to the hotel!!! I have traveled many places and made hotel reservations online, as i know, they will swapped the credit card for deposit and when we checked out, they will only billed you and teared off the deposit slip...

I called the hotel management about the above matters, to my dismay, they told me, full payment has to be made before you stayed in the Hotel!!

Am I missing out something??