Hertz’ most recent debacle started with a lawsuit initiated late last year. The lawsuit claimed that the company had falsely reported rental cars as stolen, resulting in police stopping or even arresting at least 180 customers who’d actually turned in their rentals as previously agreed. (By now, that number is up to 230.) Beyond the obvious emotional trauma that results from being pulled over at gunpoint—as is standard for stolen vehicle stops—or thrown in jail, these arrests subjected the affected customers to freshly-inked criminal records, which in turn impacted their careers, reputations, and family lives.
But why report that a vehicle has been stolen when it really hasn’t been? Francis Malofiy, one of the claimants’ attorneys, says that when Hertz can’t easily track down a car, it resorts to reporting the renter for theft. Conducting an actual investigation into the car’s whereabouts would take time and money, making the hasty police reports a convenient cost-cutting measure. Unlucky, falsely-arrested customers are just collateral damage.
(Photo: Dwight Burdette/Wikimedia Commons)
Worried that the true number of customers it annually accuses of theft could be used by competitors to steal business, Hertz filed a motion to keep its report records sealed. But Malofiy (who runs an aptly-named campaign called #truthHertz to raise awareness surrounding this issue as well as inform affected customers of their legal rights) filed a motion against this and managed to get the judge on his side. US Bankruptcy Judge Mary Walrath ordered the company to unseal the court documents containing these numbers last week, and on Thursday it was revealed that Hertz has filed 8,000 theft reports per year for the last four years. Bloomberg points out that because the documents aren’t yet public, it’s difficult to know how many of these reports were made against customers for car theft and which involved other claims; regardless, several thousand theft reports aren’t something to sneeze at, even for an international company.
Hertz may have just clawed its way out of bankruptcy, but its financial woes—and its tarnished reputation—don’t seem to have left just yet. The misfortuned customers suing Hertz are seeking $529.7 million in damages, and despite what we don’t yet know about the company’s reporting habits, things aren’t looking good.
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