Billed for a tiny scratch by previous user

On Monday morning I hired a car from the East London Airport and dropped it off on time at the Port Elizabeth Airport on the same day.

However the man at the Port Elizabeth Airport noted a scratch (which you could hardly even notice) on the bottom of the drivers door side which the inspector at the East London airport did not make note of and was there all along from a previous owner and I told him.

I was told that I would have to wait for them to call the East London airport to investigate the matter and throughout the whole week I had to run after them to find out what has been happening etc. By this time I had already been told that they would obviously pin it on me and had also read similar situations from previous clients on this site as well.

This morning they send me an SMS after enquiring about the matter via email again and was told that I would be billed R1237.73 for a 5cm scratch!

These people are theives and this is broad ****************. How would I have been able to scratch it within the space of 6 hours because not like it was a brand new car either! Mind you throughout this whole time, no one has even bothered to call me!