Europcar charging R10000 ($665) to repair dent on Kia Picanto door

Europcar charging R10000 ($665) for small car door dent!!!! In my 15 years of using various car rental companies, Europcar is the first company to give me my unpleasant encounter. I made a booking on their website to rent a car from Europcar Sandton in October 2021 for two weeks. When I arrived they say that I am at the incorrect pick location, which was not true & I showed them my booking confirmation on email. There was no explanation as to why their system would make this error or apologies, I was made to wait for almost an hour while they "find" a car. When I returned the car I recieved an email from Nick Pedlar the same day to say that there is a dent/scratch on the passenger door. I was advised that it would take three weeks to process the claim. Unfortunately I did not take the liability cover- that's fine, that was my mistake which is proving to be costly. I have had to be the one following up and calling them to get an update of the claims process and repair estimate with 3 weeks of silence from them. Then I get an sms to call their collections department. They inform me that the cost to repair a dent on a Kia Picanto door is R10000 ($665), the amount of R4650 taken from my credit card as a deposit was not enough cover the repairs.

This is where I get extremely frustrated with Europcar. No quotes were shown to me so that I can be assured that they sourced three quotes and selected a cost effective option for the repairs- surely this is standard procedure? Or do they thrive in a policy of selecting the most expensive repair option to make extra money from customers? I have still not recieved an invoice (they say they do not have my email?????) despite me calling them to give them my email address yesterday, something they should already have on their system if Nick could email me to send a picture of the dent.

As much as I don't know much about panel beating work, there is no way that the 4cm dent/scratch repair costs R10000. Even if they had to redo the entire door, it still should not cost that much. Did they respray the entire car at my expense? Honestly, I can see why this company has a reputation for being a dishonest brand that attempts to rip their customers off. I will never deal with this company again for business or personal travel and I advise anyone who is looking for an honest, professional car rental company to steer clear from them.