Hertz Still Refuses To Drop Prosecutions Despite Being Sued For Bogus Theft Reports
from the fuck-our-paying-customers-said-the-company-emerging-from-bankruptcy dept
Hertz has dug its own hole. And it insists it hasn’t hit the bottom yet. The shovels will continue to be deployed until the litigation ends. This isn’t going to work out well for Hertz, but the company seems to have retreated deep into denial following lawsuits over its bogus theft allegations.
Hertz is facing a class action lawsuit featuring hundreds of its customers over its apparent inability to handle rental paperwork correctly. Rather than engage in due diligence when things don’t add up, Hertz apparently allows employees to pull the trigger on theft reports to law enforcement. It also has allegedly decided to convert local law enforcement officers into debt collection agents, referring any overdue rentals or uncollected fees to cop shops rather than pursuing these claims using its own personnel.
The end result has been hundreds of innocent renters being accused of theft… and not just in an “angry letter sent to their residence” way. Hertz has co-opted cops, turning mistaken conclusions about rental agreements into guns-out confrontations that have deprived renters of their freedom, jobs, and any hope of returning to a normal life after being falsely accused of auto theft.
Hertz continues to claim these allegations only represent a very small percentage of their customers. That may be so, but NO OTHER RENTAL CAR COMPANY IN AMERICA is facing similar accusations. That means Hertz has failed spectacularly at controlling its inventory. And it has allowed its own failures to be pinned on renters who’ve returned cars or extended rental agreements, subjecting them to the full force of law enforcement entities who’ve never met an accused person they couldn’t destroy.
It can’t even follow through on the things the head of the company said Hertz would do when the rental company started making headlines for all the wrong reasons. Back in April, CEO Stephen Scherr said he would start cleaning up the mess and making things right for people falsely accused of stealing rental cars. He assured an interviewer that the company was implementing new policies designed to prevent false theft accusations and “would look to settle with victims.”
A month later and nothing has changed, as Fox News reports. The promises made by the CEO appear to be as empty as its hundreds of false theft accusations.
Car rental company Hertz has yet to drop charges against any of the outstanding 40 cases of alleged car theft even after new CEO Stephen Scherr said the company would rectify such erroneous cases.
“When you have the CEO that knows what the damages were and the pain and harm visited upon these victims […] and when he went out there saying that this is going to get resolved, we’re pushing it behind us, all right,” Attorney Francis Malofiy told FOX Business. “He has to follow through on his word and he failed to do so.”
Lawsuits it is, then. If the CEO won’t act, then he’ll just have to take his litigation lumps with the company he oversees. Hertz hasn’t made anything better for itself in the meantime, issuing statements alleging that it’s impossible to withdraw bogus theft reports because doing so would somehow harm its relationship with the many, many law enforcement agencies it has misled over the years.
This all reeks of corporate chicken-shittery. It’s all a bunch of in-house lawyers and ineffective company officials looking busy doing nothing until it becomes clear what their exposure is. Hertz’s reputation should be severely damaged, both with the general public and the law enforcement agencies it converted into collection agencies via unsupported theft allegations. Hopefully, the ongoing lawsuits will burn both Hertz’s lawyers and its gutless company figureheads to the ground.
Hertz didn’t have to be this way. But this is the way it is and now it’s doing whatever it can to escape taking accountability for its actions. No matter what Hertz says, no other car rental company is facing the same accusations. Something is very wrong at Hertz. But no one with the power to change things is willing to place themselves at risk. The only thing Hertz principals are willing to sacrifice is its remaining customers.
Filed Under: rental cars, theft
Companies: hertz
Comments on “Hertz Still Refuses To Drop Prosecutions Despite Being Sued For Bogus Theft Reports”
'That's a price we're willing to (have them) pay'
Hertz hasn’t made anything better for itself in the meantime, issuing statements alleging that it’s impossible to withdraw bogus theft reports because doing so would somehow harm its relationship with the many, many law enforcement agencies it has misled over the years.
They’ve got two options there:
1) Tell law enforcement that they might have issued some bogus or preemptive stolen vehichle reports and upon realizing this they are taking steps to rectify the situation starting by dropping the claims where appropriate. This might annoy law enforcement a bit for having wasted their time but it’s a good look for the public and since bogus stolen vehichle reports are also a waste of police time the previous annoyance is likely to be mitigated some.
The only real cost for this choice is Hertz having to admit to screwing up.
2) Stick to their guns and keep insisting that they’ve done nothing wrong and the stolen vehicle reports are accurate. As a result the police will continue to prosecute innocent people and Hertz customers caught in the crossfire will continue to pay the price for the company screwing up.
In this option the company doesn’t have to admit anything and the only people harmed are their customers and law enforcement, the former rather more than the latter.
That they decided to go with option two rather than one is rather telling as to how sorry they actually are for their actions and how much they value their customers versus the company’s (bogus) sterling reputation.
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“The only real cost for this choice is Hertz having to admit to screwing up.”
Well, this probably rises to the level of filing multiple false felony reports to police, so the legal consequences could go beyond financial. They may have made a calculation that massive civil liability is better than criminal liability.
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For #2 … Isn’t it illegal to file (or continue to represent to the court) statements that are known to be false?
Or do that courts just take BS wholesale…. as long as you are somewhere on the prosecution side?
Outdoing Avis
For many years, starting in the early 60s, Avis – smaller than Hertz – played on their #2 rental car company status with the slogan, “We Try Harder.” It seems that Hertz’s play on that catch phrase is, “We’ll Trial You Harder.”
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*”We’ll Try You Harder.” Guess what the etymology of the word “trial” is?
Re: and it did not work
Years ago, we received the Hertz/Avis example in a marketing training because it didn’t work. When you tell your customers that the other guy is better, they just go to the other guy.
Hertz’s new slogan: “Buy from us, and we’ll make sure you’ll never do that ever again”!
Heard of a case where Enterprise had something similar happen
Only it was a police record keeping error, and by contrast, they (Enterprise) made it right, apologized, and offered compensation etc, as opposed to Hurts. I will NEVERRRRRRRR do business with these scum, why risk this bs?
At least the name of the company is an accurate representation of how you will feel after dealing with Hertz.
I suspect....
… what’s really happening is that someone close to the top-level executive suite is selling cars out the back door. They then claim the loss for insurance remuneration, but that requires that they file a police report. I’m not certain if they just pick random customer names out of a hat, or use some other method to find patsies, but it probably made sense to them back when they first cooked up this scheme. Too bad they failed in school, the class where the would’ve learned about “ramifications and consequences of one’s actions”.
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Picture of intense looking fellow standing in front of a cork board with pictures and strings connecting things dot gif.
One wonders if any of the police departments sucked into this illegal, illegitimate operation will take a page from other other high profile cases based on lies & bill Hertz for all of the costs.
Chick can run away from a wedding, claim she was kidnapped, blame brown people, stick to her guns only for the investigation to discover she was hiding out with her old boyfriend the whole time and she gets handed a bill for the costs from her false report… and no one thought of making Hertz repay the various departments they’ve wasted the time of?
I mean its not like we live in a country where a 15 yr old can disappear from a basketball game, the cops just have no interest in pursing it, & then suddenly maybe care once she is found a couple states away being pimped out… oh wait.
But a company who had made hundreds of false claims can keep submitting them, even as they are being sued for the false claims, can still get people found & arrested.
I can’t qwhite put my finger on the difference…
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The difference is that the girl is legally a child, and children “often run away,” whereas Hertz is a big company making lots of money, and would therefore “never lie or make a mistake.” Simples!
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She was 15, disappeared from a pro basketball game she attended with her father.
They refused to take a report.
They are now in damage control because she was actually trafficked, nude photos of her posted online, pimped out.
Maybe if they had less Hertz false claims to follow up on they might have bothered to find the girl before the was turned out.
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I’d have thought my use of quotation marks would have made it clear I was repeating bullshit hypotheses rather than agreeing with them. Guess not.
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Forgive me, I am off my game as of late.
The constant pain thing is a distraction.
Why use them?
I used to be a consultant that traveled every week, usually with a car rental involved. Hertz was always the most expensive and the only reason I would use them is if the company I was traveling for arranged the rental and they had a contract with Hertz. Any other of the 200 some rental companies will do.
The new get rich quick scheme!
If I had the time and wasn’t concerned about being beaten up and thrown in jail, I might rent a car from Hertz and HOPE that I would be on this list. Probably my only real hope of a big payday.
The statement made by the CEO sounds to be edging on the promissory.
These articles have been an eye opener to me. I will never, ever, rent a car from this company and will be sure to inform any I know considering renting a car to stay away from Hertz.
Hertz has competition in this market and I will do all in my power to let others know this.
That is what bad PR does for a company.
This shouldn’t be an issue fealty either by lawsuits. At this point they know the theft allègerions are false. They should be charged with filing false police reports for every single one. THEN sued by their customers/victims for damages.
Why?
Why would ANYONE rent a car from Hertz now? I definitely would not risk it, regardless of the price for the rental.
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because in the endless news cycle its not even a blip in the 45 minutes of wondering how & why the school was shot up.
Hertz
I believe it’s done purposely. For a while I was getting messages from them several times a day, each time for a diff person. When I called they said they had no idea who the people were. I save the # from the next call & called back directly. I left a vm advising her thay there was no way it was a mistake & she should stop using my number to show shr attempted contactjust to say she reaches out to the customer. It’s been bout a month & no more calls. I’m sure she just chose a diff random # I instead xapntacting the customer, no more calls si ce then though.