UK Car rental cheating practices

On the 1st of August I booked a Hyundai i800 through the Argus online site and was directed to the Green motion rentals in Manchester. The rental was for a day from the 2nd till the 3rd August 2012.
When I went to pick up the car an extra GBP300 was held as a security deposit though this was not stated during the online ordering process.
On the morning of the 3rd we got two calls from the rental company saying the car was due back at 10:00AM, even though it clearly stated on all the forms that the vehicle was signed out at 11:24AM on the 2nd of August and due back at the same time the following day . My wife informed them the second time they called that we were fifteen minutes away.
When we got there, there were three of their officials waiting outside to meet us. I came out and wanted to hand the keys over. They declined and asked me to go in to the office, which I promptly did, leaving 2 of the officials beside the vehicle.
One official, who was in the office, came out with me to inspect the car. He went straight to the wing side of the vehicle and pointed out a scratch on the body of the vehicle, stating this was new. It looked new to me as well but it was not there when I parked the car. There was clearly no way of verifying what had happened to the car between the point when I drove into the car park and went into their office, to the point when he came out to inspect.
They said they will get a quote from the workshop and send me an invoice. The repairs will be paid off from the security deposit and should more be required it will be taken out of my credit card.
Within a few hours, I got an email with an invoice of GBP 630. I was informed that I will also be billed for two extra days the vehicle will be at the workshop since it won’t be generating money while being fixed.
I found the whole charge outrageous and challenged the invoice. I requested an independent assessment/quote which was declined and also requested an inspection of the vehicle after the so called work is done. This was expectedly turned down as well.
Attached are pictures of the damage to the vehicle. I find it hard to believe that it will cost GBP 630 plus two days to fix.
There were about 7 – 10 marks on the vehicle, prior to us renting it. I can’t help but wonder how much previous customers must have paid for those ‘damages’ which were clearly never repaired. It appears the rental income is not the only sources of income for the likes of Green Motion and they are out to make a buck out of any unsuspecting customer.
In retrospect I blame myself for not reading the several bad reviews of the company, warning people to run and not walk away from the likes of Green Motion. I hope someone learns from this.

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