Additional false arrest claims against Hertz

YouTube user Bay Area Buggs presents “Metro State Boys!” This looks like a video game parodying Metro State. (Bay Area Buggs/YouTube)

Hertz faces an additional 100 new claims against it for the false arrests its customers were subjected to. The Hertz vehicles they rented were pulled over, and the drivers arrested at gunpoint on suspicions of vehicle theft. These customers followed normal vehicle renting procedures, then drove their rented vehicles not thinking twice about the legitimacy of if their rental. Whether the vehicle was returned long after it was due, and the police report not adjusted, or through actual past theft, Hertz did not appear to have done its due administrative diligence.

From Fox Business:

Malofiy says that Hertz files the incorrect police reports when there is a failure to process payment for rental extensions after 62 days and that the company is not doing its due diligence to adequately investigate before reporting the cars as stolen.

In addition, he claims the company is backdating rental due dates, deleting rental extensions, charging and collecting full payment from customers without notifying police after the incorrect theft reports are filed and converting civil payment disputes into criminal matters to avoid arbitration and get a “financial and litigation advantage.”

“It’s putting profits ahead of human life and it’s a reckless disregard to the life of someone else,” he said.

According to Hertz, law enforcement is notified whenever a vehicle reported stolen is recovered to remove it from the National Crime Information Center database. However, the Philadelphia Inquirer previously reported that Hertz “has no mechanism to withdraw a criminal referral because … it has to maintain a relationship of ‘integrity and responsibility’ with law enforcement.”

Malofiy says a starting point for Hertz to do right by customers is to rescind incorrect police reports and hire more local corporate managers to conduct preliminary investigations to avoid future false arrest incidents.

“I appreciate the CEO’s statements that they’re going to settle these claims, that they’re going to put this behind them, but the sincerity of the statement is measured by how he values the damages,” Malofiy adds. “Corporations don’t learn from their mistakes unless they pay for them and Hertz has to pay for their mistakes.”

Fox Business has the rest of the article here.

Category: "Teh Stoopid"