Hertz will be paying a nine figure settlement for repeatedly having its customers arrested, which is great news.
In this post:
Hertz’s bad habit of sending customers to jail
I’ve written in the past about Hertz’s pattern of falsely accusing renters of stealing cars. Long story short, Hertz has often filed police reports over cars being stolen, except the company often wasn’t very careful about doing this.
There were endless stories of people being arrested (often even at gunpoint) for being accused of stealing a Hertz vehicle, even when they had a legitimate rental agreement, and had just picked up the car.
It’s one thing if this were an isolated incident, but court records earlier this year showed that Hertz has filed nearly 8,000 theft reports annually over a four year period. Hertz claims that a “vast majority” of those cases involve renters who are weeks or months late with returning a car. Unfortunately that still leaves a lot of cases where that’s not the case.
It’s simply unbelievable to think that you could legitimately rent a car from Hertz, and 30 minutes later find yourself at gun point in a parking lot. One person even reported spending seven months (!!!!) in jail due to a false police report by Hertz.
Many of us have wondered if anything would ever change, and if Hertz would take responsibility for this. Well, the latest update makes me feel like maybe Hertz will be a bit more careful in the future.
Hertz reaches $168 million settlement
As noted by View from the Wing, Hertz has today announced that it has reached a settlement of 364 pending claims related to vehicle theft reporting, bringing resolution to 95% of theft reporting claims.
The company will pay approximately $168 million by year-end to resolve these disputes. So crunching the numbers, it sounds like the average person in the suit will be getting ~$460K, not accounting for legal fees.
Hertz believes it will recover a meaningful portion of the settlement amount from its insurance carriers, and doesn’t expect the resolution of these claims to have a material impact on its capital allocation plans for the balance of 2022 and 2023.
Stephen Scherr, CEO of Hertz, had the following to say about this:
“As I have said since joining Hertz earlier this year, my intention is to lead a company that puts the customer first. In resolving these claims, we are holding ourselves to that objective. While we will not always be perfect, the professionals at Hertz will continue to work every day to provide best-in-class service to the tens of millions of people we serve each year. Moving forward, it is our intention to reshape the future of our company through electrification, shared mobility and a great digital-first customer experience.”
While I appreciate that we certainly all make mistakes, I don’t think “not always perfect” is a fair way to describe Hertz’s actions here.
Bottom line
Hertz will be paying roughly $168 million to resolve most of its pending lawsuits over people being arrested for stolen cars. The car rental giant has repeatedly incorrectly filed police reports over stolen vehicles, only for people with legitimate rental agreements to find themselves in handcuffs.
Hopefully the amount of money being paid here will cause Hertz to be more careful going forward.
What do you make of this Hertz settlement?
FYI. What hertz was allied to pay out was nothing. Here’s Hetz’s yearly profit.
Hertz Global Holdings net income for the quarter ending September 30, 2022 was $0.577B, a 1.05% increase year-over-year. Hertz Global Holdings net income for the twelve months ending September 30, 2022 was $1.266B, a 316.45% increase year-over-year.
Long story short. Do not rent from Hertz. Spread this info and warn your friends and family. I also find the payment they are finally making for unjust jailing ridiculous. How about 2 to 3 million per person for anyone sent to jail. Then they’d learn a thing or two.
Screw them they tried the same bs with me except I bitched pissed and threatened to sue the living shit out of them, helps having a lawyer or two in the family.
Hopefully Hertz is facing thousands of charges and fines for filing false police reports. That may get their attention as its unlikely their insurance covers criminal acts.
Good news for me. Usually Hertz is not cost effective anyway so I wouldn't chose them
They've actually been pretty reasonable lately. They used to be one of the most expensive, but I'm sure demand dropped a bit when these stories came out. All they had to do was slightly reduce prices and they're as busy as ever. In fact I'm renting a Hertz car right now - with some trepidation.
I'm curious - have other companies had people arrested by mistake?
Long story short. Do not rent from Hertz. Spread this info and warn your friends and family. I also find the payment they are finally making for unjust jailing ridiculous. How about 2 to 3 million per person for anyone sent to jail. Then they’d learn a thing or two.
Let’s all say a prayer that one of the remaining cases completes discovery and a well publicized jury trial. After which the decision will be unanimously in favor of the renter.
It's so sadness for those people whom went to Jail. They life will be not the same. I am shame of Hertz Company. Munziotti
"Hertz believes it will recover a meaningful portion of the settlement amount from its insurance carriers".
Really??! Are they insured with Santa Claus Benevolent General Insurance?
My understanding is that if you are entirely responsible for the event/s for which you are claiming, your claim will be denied (especially if you have admitted liability and sorta apologised).
Classic example of a company using outsourced IT deveopers but nobody on shore with IT skills to validate the work. Guarantee that outsourcing will fail 99.9 pct of the time.
A bit of a stretch.
I think it's a classic example of lack of corporate ethics, period and full stop. They had years to fix this problem and they did not, despite the very real stories of the hardship they unjustly caused people.
"While we will not always be perfect..." Wow, what an amazing admission, I'm sure we are all speechless at this revelation.
Almost like saying "Mistakes were made..." LOL
Or "your safety is our #1 commitment" no place safer than a random prison with zero explanation.
I actually woke up one morning to find a flat bed tow truck blocking all three of my garage doors at 5am. When I told him he was on private property he said he was instructed by Hertz to recover a stolen Corvette on a rental agreement that used my home address as the billing address with someone else’s name. I’ve never even rented from Hertz. They even registered my home address into the Automatic...
I actually woke up one morning to find a flat bed tow truck blocking all three of my garage doors at 5am. When I told him he was on private property he said he was instructed by Hertz to recover a stolen Corvette on a rental agreement that used my home address as the billing address with someone else’s name. I’ve never even rented from Hertz. They even registered my home address into the Automatic Traffic System database so if I were pulled over I could have been arrested. Long story short, over 2 years and several corporate attorneys later, the issue was finally resolved. No apology, no free upgrade if I chose hertz in the future. No Nothing. So I continue not to use hertz, despite Tom Brady’s stupid smirky smile in their dumb-ass
advertisements.
“Moving forward, it is our intention to reshape the future of our company through electrification, shared mobility and a great digital-first customer experience.”
Phew!
“Digital-first” means the false arrests will stop!
Doesn’t it?
No, they mean they are giving you the one digit (finger) salute!
i appreciate hertz accepting responsibility finally, i appreciate the six figure settlement—but it still wasn’t worth 18 months of my life.
Still, a pretty goid chunk of change.
while you’re not wrong, and the average paycheck from this settlement isn’t insignificant, it should be noted that this didn’t just happen to poor people.
a lot of victims wouldn’t ever have seen that much cash in one place otherwise, and it may turn out that their arrest was an inconvenient blessing.
i on the other hand was making a shitload of money when hertz ruined my life. the damage to reputation—when you’re...
while you’re not wrong, and the average paycheck from this settlement isn’t insignificant, it should be noted that this didn’t just happen to poor people.
a lot of victims wouldn’t ever have seen that much cash in one place otherwise, and it may turn out that their arrest was an inconvenient blessing.
i on the other hand was making a shitload of money when hertz ruined my life. the damage to reputation—when you’re accused of a felony, you watch your family and friends evaporate and presume you did it—hertz will owe me that forever, no matter how many checks they cut.
Funny enough I just got a letter in the mail this morning claiming I didn’t return a car 3 weeks ago, despite hertz sending a statement of charge when I returned it.
I haven’t been arrested yet but should I try to get on the class action? ;)
Just wait for them to arrest you.
Yes. Fill in the clain form and expect a $468K direct deposit shortly thereafter.
Hertz has $168 million?
Yea there is no way I would ever rent a car from Hertz again. I am not sure who ever would, given there are so.many competitors who don't put their customers in jail falsely.
Even if you saved a few bucks?
@Adam: All companies try to bounce the ball around. If you buy a laptop at a local brick and mortar store, it only provides warranty for ninety days to one year. After the warranty elapses, you must deal with the manufacturer. I then ask why does anyone bother buying from a local store at a higher price when they can buy online with all the tech support and full warranty provided. Dead silence. Same as...
@Adam: All companies try to bounce the ball around. If you buy a laptop at a local brick and mortar store, it only provides warranty for ninety days to one year. After the warranty elapses, you must deal with the manufacturer. I then ask why does anyone bother buying from a local store at a higher price when they can buy online with all the tech support and full warranty provided. Dead silence. Same as when you do not buy air tickets directly with the airline or do not book a room reservation directly with a hotel. You will be left holding a bag. Same when people advise you to file a lawsuit at the courthouse. None of us will want to take that route now as all courthouses have huge backlogs, no sufficient court reporters on duty, and keep being sent back to court when your case is not being heard on the court date. Then when and how you will collect the judgement when the court rules in your favor.
Sir, this is a Wendy’s
Would be great if you and the other travel bloggers started a boycott Hertz movement.
168 million is peanuts to Hertz and as you stated it will mostly covered by insurance. They won't learn a thing
The blame rests on our lawmakers at this point. Pass a law that false reports of a stolen car means the HERTZ CEO GOES TO JAIL FOR 30 NIGHTS per car. Then watch as all false reports mysteriously disappear.
Or not, depending on how well liked the CEO is by the rank & file... :-)
You want to arrest a C corporation? Is's a tax entity.
Hertz is all around shady. They said I gave them back my Tesla uncharged and refused to take a photo and said sorry that’s with Tesla. Okay, sure I rented a Tesla …. THROUGH YOU, it’s beyond the scope my responsibility to deal with a third party.
In spite of the payment . . . no (stickin') way.