Hertz’s CEO finally admits they’ve been falsely reporting cars stolen, and getting customers sent to jail. But, they argue, it doesn’t happen that often. And, like a Hertz attorney argued in court back in January, it doesn’t happen anymore because of the so-called safeguards they’ve put in place.
Except, of course, it keeps happening – even after Hertz exited bankruptcy, and even after a Hertz attorney represented to a court in a class action lawsuit that this was a thing of the past.
In fact attorneys are filing over 100 new cases and many of them won’t be in bankruptcy court, because they’re too recent, because this appears to keep happening.
Best I’ve been able to tell it usually stems from paperwork errors at Hertz when a customer extends a rental or swaps a vehicle, though not always, as two recent cases illustrate.
- On March 9 a car was rented from Hertz at an airport in Houston and the plates on the car didn’t match its registration. Instead the car had plates of a car Hertz had reported stolen. The renters were pulled over by police with guns drawn.
“As we were returning with the car, we were pulled over and arrested at gunpoint,” Morgan wrote in a legal declaration. “It was traumatic and humiliating. The police told us that the car was stolen.”
According to a police officer where the Hyundai Sonata got pulled over,
Hertz probably just failed to check the license plate when they did the rental inspection,” Boggus said in an interview. “We’ve had several stolen rentals that were not really stolen.
- On February 5 a director filming a music video was pulled over in his rented Nissan Versa in Beverly Hills, California and he was,
handcuffed and placed in the back of a patrol car as part of the stop, which involved 10 officers with guns drawn, according to the statement. The Beverly Hills police were alerted after an automated license plate reader scanned the vehicle, which had been reported stolen, according to a police report.
Fortunately in both of these cases, while the renters were detained by police, they weren’t charged. These incidents are on top of the recent case of a Hertz Presidents Circle member arrested as he got off a cruise, for what appears to be the crime of renting from Hertz.
The possibility of being arrested and thrown in jail should deter one from renting from Hertz, I know it does for me. I will never rent a car from them again.
Hertz shouldn’t be allowed to report any missing cars until they get this fixed.
My gosh, will this madness never end!!?, Hertz is either evil or clueless.
Either way they need to be put to sleep…..
What will it take before a judge enjoins Hertz from reporting cars stolen until they fix their processes, if they even can be fixed? And when will the police stop taking any action on Hertz stolen car reports?
Filing a false police report is also a crime. Law enforcement should start tracking down who made the stolen vehicle report and arrest that person. I bet that will quickly end this madness.
and yet Hertz just guided investors to a strong demand environment. Isn’t it to make money the old fashioned way?
@ Gary — Hertz and Marriot really should merge.
I’ll consider using Hertz again after they’ve completed five years without a single customer being arrested.
I’m also hilariously getting an add at the bottom of this page for Hertz van and truck rentals.
Hertz is a Terrorist Organization.
I’d like to see Hertz change their business to airplane rentals rather than cars to buyout the companies whoever leased planes to Russia, and let them attempt to do the repossession of the currently stolen planes!
They should pick on someone their own size rather than ordinary innocent customers hehe.
This is exactly why I stopped renting from them a while back.
Hertz executives are the ones who need to go to jail. This lawless company cannot be permitted to continue operating this way.
Listen up, Hertz! Get off your bums and hire 3 people who will review every single ‘returned car’ case BEFORE it is submitted as stolen. Do it RIGHT NOW. This is a disgrace, completely insane. A high school graduate who knows how to type could handle this job.
Hertz needs to Bring Back OJ then they would have the perfect corporation with a world crass Ambassador.He can pass out gloves to every renter
Joking aside I haven’t rented them since all the negative press started
Serious scary stuff.
Did Hertz compensate the arrested people? Did they even apologize? If I were to be arrested, I would demand compensation, and if not received, sue.
Why do police need to pull guns on people who are otherwise complying with a traffic stop?
Are you telling me the left wing AGs in California or NYC are too busy to file a case against Hertz? I guarantee this would stop within 24 hours if we sent LEOs arrest and handcuff Hertz senior executives for permitting the filing of false reports as a corporate policy.
@Jerry – If the police get a report of a stolen car, even if it turns out to be not stolen (which they have no way of knowing until they detain & question the people), it’s more than just “a traffic stop.”
I am ready to retire on hertz” dime. Going to rent a car every day till I get pulled over at gun point. Then my lawyer will help me ride off in the sun set.The managers in operations are all disgruntled. They are not getting the staff they need or the cars they need. The frontline staff is sick and tired o getting yelled at how they have ruined their vacation or had them miss an important meeting because they had no cars available . So employees are frustrated and don’t give a crap like the local managers.I am sure when they have no cars available and a line of unhappy people those cars that should not be rented get rented. So there you go this will never end.
Before the Pandemic, we were Hertz renters. Then we rented a car that had some mechanical issues–like it kept dying. Hertz required my husband to wait for the tow vehicle and ride with him half an hour to the airport to get another car, rather than bringing one to us. (They had a closer office they could have taken it to, but we had rented at the airport, so it went there.) When we complained they offered us a discount on our next rental. When we went to use that discount, the clerk kept saying they had given us the discount, but the rental price remained exactly the same. They said it was because when they added the discount, they had to take away another discount we used when making the initial reservation. It took us quite some time of arguing to make them see that if the price had not gone down, we had NOT received a discount. I believe that was the last time we rented from Hertz. But at least I can be happy they didn’t arrest us, I suppose.
I just got a letter today from Hertz claiming I still have a vehicle I returned last week and threatening me with arrest. No previous communication prior to the letter. President’s Club, no rental extension, picked up and returned at the airport. Thankfully, I took a photo of the dash when I returned it, for mileage and fuel record, and that’s geolocated to Hertz airport rental office.
Offshore call center agent said they’d “look into it.”
I’m done with these guys. They can keep my 10k points.
Hertz will allegedly get sued left and right!
Please tell me why people are still giving Hertz business
Gary, can you please leave off the text from the post that people are commenting on? Please! Please!
This new software you have is vertically listing the text one or two words at a time so I need to scroll down 6 to 9 inches just to get to the comment. It’s maddening on my Android phone. Can’t the title of the post be enough? Surely people know what they are commenting on!
Thanks!