After clawing its way out of bankruptcy, car rental provider Hertz is battling another blow to its reputation as more than two hundred former customers have come forward with harrowing stories about being arrested over claims that they stole their rental vehicle.
Late last year, over 180 Hertz customers moved forward with a lawsuit in bankruptcy court seeking damages of just under $530 million against the car rental giant. Many of the plaintiffs detailed stories in which they were arrested by police with some spending time behind bars for a crime they didn’t commit. Since the suit was filed, the number of impacted customers has since grown to 230.
According to the lawsuit, instead of tracking down missing vehicles, Hertz routinely reported them as stolen in an effort to save time and money that would have otherwise gone to locating the missing vehicles. Instead, the company would file missing vehicle reports with law enforcement agencies and have their vehicles tracked down that way.
According to the complaint, through these standard business practices, Hertz was "ensnaring its customers in accusations of car theft, throwing them in jail on felony charges, prosecuting them, burdening them with criminal records that impact their livelihoods, and separating them from their family and loved ones." The lawsuit goes on to explain that the company was "effectively using the police, criminal justice system, and taxpayers to subsidize inventory control for a private corporation."
As reports of previous customers getting arrested over vehicles they did not steal continue to trickle in, pressure for the rental company to reveal how many of these police reports they file each year began to mount. In early February, attorney Francis Malofiy, who is representing one of the claimants, filed a motion to require Hertz to unveil the information. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Mary Walrath approved the motion and ordered Hertz to release documents containing that information. Released last Thursday, reports indicate that for the last four years, Hertz has filed over 8,000 theft lawsuits. Although the records are not yet public, it's unclear how many of these claims pertained to vehicles that were not actually stolen.
This week, national news outlets have reported on yet another former Hertz customer who was arrested over claims of a stolen vehicle. New Hampshire man Charles Doucette was arrested last week and is still behind bars after authorities stopped him at a Florida port while he was onboard a cruise ship.
In a phone interview with CBS News' consumer investigative correspondent Anna Werner, Doucette shared from behind bars, "This is the most horrific experience of my life." He adds, "I am one of their best customers. And here I am sitting in jail. It's just completely absurd that any company would allow something to affect somebody's life."
