Hertz Reveals How Many People It Accuses of Car Theft Each Year

Hertz Reveals How Many People It Accuses of Car Theft Each Year

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.

Hertz Reveals How Many People It Accuses of Car Theft Each Year

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.

Continue reading

Elon Musk: SpaceX Will Send People to Mars in 4 to 6 Years
Elon Musk: SpaceX Will Send People to Mars in 4 to 6 Years

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk likes to make bold claims. Sometimes he comes through, and we end up with a reusable Falcon 9 rocket, but Musk also has a tendency to get carried away, particularly when it comes to Mars. The SpaceX CEO has long promised a Mars colony on an aggressive, and some…

190,000 Ceiling Fans Recalled After Blades Fly Off, Hitting People
190,000 Ceiling Fans Recalled After Blades Fly Off, Hitting People

King of Fans is recalling some 190,000 ceiling fans sold through Home Depot after the blades began detaching during operation.

Signia Active Hearing Aids Review: For People Who Love Earbuds
Signia Active Hearing Aids Review: For People Who Love Earbuds

For many people, the idea of wearing hearing aids comes with a stigma, even if it would benefit them. So hearing aid companies have been working on new form factors to try and make that less of an issue. We review one of the latest, the earbud-shaped Active Pro model from Signia.

Newegg Forced People to Buy Gigabyte Power Supplies With Catastrophic Failure Rates
Newegg Forced People to Buy Gigabyte Power Supplies With Catastrophic Failure Rates

An investigation into Gigabyte power supplies has found that an unacceptable number of units suffer failures, many of them explosively. What makes all of this worse is that the same two model numbers known to be affected were part of Newegg's forced bundling program earlier this year.