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Hertz to pay $168 million for falsely reporting stolen vehicles causing customers to be imprisoned
BoingBoing ^ | 6 December 2022 | Mark Frauenfelder

Posted on 12/06/2022 10:46:29 AM PST by ShadowAce

The CEO of Hertz is sorry, so sorry for misplacing returned rental vehicles and then reporting them as stolen, causing honest customers to be locked in jail in some cases for six months or more. Not sorry enough to voluntarily compensate victims, of course. Hertz waited for a lawsuit, contesting the claims until it was forced to cough up $168 million.

"In all cases, Hertz's goal is to protect its profits and cut its costs, even if it knows their own customers will lose their liberty and freedom as a result," said the lawsuit against Hertz.

"In February, after a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge in Delaware ruled that Hertz must make public the number of people it filed complaints against, the company revealed it was filing thousands of police reports each year," reported The New York Times.

The Times gives examples of people falsely imprisoned by Hertz's recklessly negligent behavior:

According to another lawsuit filed in the same court in 2020, a woman was arrested in April 2019 in Broward County, Fla., after extending and paying for her Hertz rental car. She spent 37 days in jail, where she was separated from her fiancé and two children, missed her nursing school graduation and discovered she was pregnant, according to the suit.

In another instance, a man who turned himself in to authorities in Gwinnett County, Ga., in 2018, after learning there was a warrant for his arrest on charges that he stole a Hertz car, had actually paid for and returned the vehicle, according to court records. After missing a hearing date, he was arrested again, and jailed for six and a half months, documents state.

By way of apology, Hertz CEO Stephen Scherr said his company would "not always be perfect."


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: hertz; scherr; stephenscherr
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1 posted on 12/06/2022 10:46:29 AM PST by ShadowAce
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To: ShadowAce

Didn’t the folks receive a receipt when they returned the cars?


2 posted on 12/06/2022 10:51:37 AM PST by peggybac (My will is what I wanted. God's will is what I got.)
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To: ShadowAce

I don’t rent cars that often but am supposed to use Hertz. I never have used them since they’re often far more expensive than the others.

This is all the more reason.

How sick can these connivers be?


3 posted on 12/06/2022 10:52:41 AM PST by cyclotic (Follow 1776rm.com. Fighting for our Constitution. @1776RM on Truth)
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To: ShadowAce

So do the victims get the $168 mill (after lawyer), or whom?


4 posted on 12/06/2022 10:54:47 AM PST by Scrambler Bob (My /s is more true than your /science (or you might mean /seance))
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To: ShadowAce

Holly crap. I had not idea this kind of thing was happening.

So if I go tell the popo that a particular person borrowed my car and didn’t return it, my only evidence being it wasn’t in my driveway, are they going to run out and arrest hat person? Hardly.

Big corporations getting special privilege’s form the government.

I have to wonder how often this happens across the rental can industry, or is this just a Hertz added feature.

I’ll be taking a video of myself returning the car and keys in the drop box then next time I rent a car.

Sheesh.


5 posted on 12/06/2022 10:56:41 AM PST by Jotmo (Whoever said, "The pen is mightier than the sword." has clearly never been stabbed to death.)
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To: peggybac

Probably did receive a receipt. I haven’t held onto mine in the past, but I will from now on.


6 posted on 12/06/2022 10:57:44 AM PST by I-ambush (We watched the moment of defeat, played back over on the video screen. )
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To: peggybac

When you return a car after business hours you just drop the keys in a box. No one there to receive them, or give you a receipt.


7 posted on 12/06/2022 10:58:50 AM PST by Jotmo (Whoever said, "The pen is mightier than the sword." has clearly never been stabbed to death.)
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To: ShadowAce

We flew into Oakland to pick uup a Budget rental SUV.

They told us to go to spot #29 for a CRV. We did and it was empty. I went back to the counter and they were rewritting the contract for a RAV then my wife called and said she found a CRV a few spots over. The clerk ran the plate and it and said it was not in their system.


8 posted on 12/06/2022 10:59:34 AM PST by TexasGator (!!!)
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To: ShadowAce

O J will take care of Hertz. He knows how to find a criminal. /s


9 posted on 12/06/2022 11:01:40 AM PST by Hyman Roth
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To: Jotmo

Yeah, I’ve returned countless rental cars, and I’m pretty sure that I’ve left keys in a dropbox before. Scary that a careless, half-assed company can pull this crap on customers.


10 posted on 12/06/2022 11:02:27 AM PST by irishjuggler
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To: cyclotic

Hertz is going through bankruptcy. Nothing will surprise me. I use to use them but not this year they were 30% higher than all of the others.


11 posted on 12/06/2022 11:04:30 AM PST by gibsonguy
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To: ShadowAce

The CEO of Hertz is sorry, so sorry for misplacing returned rental vehicles and then reporting them as stolen, causing honest customers to be locked in jail in some cases for six months or more. Not sorry enough to voluntarily compensate victims, of course. Hertz waited for a lawsuit, contesting the claims until it was forced to cough up $168 million.

Hertz is operating an IT system where the left hand doesn’t know what the right is doing.

They apparently have a database of what they consider to be stolen vehicles. Yet they’re loaning out vehicles, which if they bothered to cross check, would appear in the stolen vehicle database. Both things cannot be true. you cannot loan out a car if it is supposed to be stolen.


12 posted on 12/06/2022 11:07:29 AM PST by Flick Lives (Cui bono)
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To: Jotmo

just drop the keys in a box.

Only if you must. Spouse was going to be charged for three days because the keys were dropped into the bottom of the bin and not found in the pile. She is OCD, and had taken a photo of the vehicle, tag, and parking space with a date and time showing. Wasn’t Hertz, but similar.
I had a $250 key charge, when I discovered the rental key fob in my pocket at airlines checkin line. Wasn’t even ten minutes between dropoff and key return. Took a week to recover.


13 posted on 12/06/2022 11:08:23 AM PST by drSteve78 (Je suis Deplorable STILL)
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To: Scrambler Bob

It was a Bankruptcy case, so maybe they all get in line behind the senior creditors.


14 posted on 12/06/2022 11:10:15 AM PST by monkeyshine (live and let live is dead)
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To: Jotmo
I heard about this from Lehto's Law I didn't realize how widespread this fiasco was.
15 posted on 12/06/2022 11:11:00 AM PST by Impala64ssa (If a liar's pants really did catch on fire CBC, ABC, CNN and MSNBC would be more fun to watch)
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To: Jotmo

Actually, if you report your car as stolen that is exactly what will happen. Your car will be entered into NCIC system and if a police officer pulls it over, it will be treated as a stolen car. You could very well be pulled out at gunpoint, handcuffed and taken to the station and the car towed.

These were very serious situations that put people in life and death situations.

Hertz should pay because they had a systemic failure that repeatedly led to this situation and they knew it and did not fix it.


16 posted on 12/06/2022 11:11:38 AM PST by gunnut
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To: peggybac

Apparently that didn’t matter to Hertz. And I imagine that many were dropped off after hours when it wasn’t possible to get a receipt. But then, other car rental companies don’t have this problem.


17 posted on 12/06/2022 11:13:44 AM PST by Blood of Tyrants (Inside every leftist is a blood-thirsty fascist yearning to be free of current societal constraints.)
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To: cyclotic

Whenever I have needed a rental car for work, my employer has appreciated that I use the most economical.


18 posted on 12/06/2022 11:15:37 AM PST by Blood of Tyrants (Inside every leftist is a blood-thirsty fascist yearning to be free of current societal constraints.)
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To: ShadowAce

Why is it big business can file a false police report and violate people’s rights and no one gets arrested?

If I did this, I’d be in jail. The CEO of Hertz should be locked up.


19 posted on 12/06/2022 11:17:28 AM PST by for-q-clinton (Cancel Culture IS fascism...Let's start calling it that!)
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To: ShadowAce

The money’s not enough. Every clown in the company involved with the failure to update and report vehicle status needs to sit behind bars for three times the amount of time all the customers did. The CEO needs to be included in the group.


20 posted on 12/06/2022 11:18:41 AM PST by T.B. Yoits
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