[HN Gopher] Hertz is still having rental car customers wrongfull...
___________________________________________________________________
Hertz is still having rental car customers wrongfully arrested,
lawsuit claims
Author : mikece
Score : 127 points
Date : 2022-09-24 20:46 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.thedrive.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.thedrive.com)
| walrus01 wrote:
| People are slowly realizing that one of the _actual_ roles of
| police in US society is to protect the interests of large
| corporations, wealthy people and those in entrenched positions of
| power. And not actually to serve /protect the population.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/justices-rule-po...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia
|
| https://www.barneslawllp.com/blog/police-not-required-protec...
| RC_ITR wrote:
| >People are slowly realizing that one of the actual roles of
| police in US society is to protect the interests of large
| corporations
|
| I'd say protect the interests of _capital_ , which just so
| happens to be something corporations have a lot of.
|
| Think of it this way: grand larceny isn't dependent on the
| victim's net worth, so even if stealing $100 from a poor person
| has 1,000x impact on their life vs. stealing $100,000 from a
| wealthy person's private business, you can guarantee that the
| $100,000 will be what the police focus on.
| rocket_surgeron wrote:
| Requiring a duty to protect is extremely dangerous to society.
|
| It elevates police above regular citizens.
|
| Contrary to popular perception police have almost no powers
| beyond that of regular citizens. Citizens can make arrests,
| police differ in that they can do so even if they are not
| direct witnesses of a crime. Citizens can enter private
| property to save lives, and can break laws and regulations to
| do so as well. Police can only enter private property absent a
| threat to life or property if given permission either by the
| owner or courts.
|
| They have qualified immunity, as do several other professions
| and citizens acting in extraordinary capacities such as good
| samaritans.
|
| The law and public expectations should be that police are
| regular citizens with a regular job, bound by the same laws as
| everyone else.
|
| Not that they are specially-designated protectors.
|
| They only become specially-designated protectors when they take
| someone into custody--- and depriving someone of their freedom
| of movement is one of the few things regular citizens cannot
| realistically do.
|
| Elevating them to have some special extraordinary status is,
| again, very dangerous. Many powers would be enabled by such a
| status which do not exist today that could be justified by
| granting them a "duty" to protect.
|
| Additionally, just from a philosophical perspective doing so
| would be immoral. Regular citizens, with very few exceptions
| such as vessel captains, parents, spouses, and employers (in
| the context of being required to be provide a safe working
| environment and facilitate rescue of endangered employees)
| having a "duty" to protect anyone. It is unreasonable, to
| myself and many others, to levy such a duty on anyone except in
| extraordinary circumstances.
|
| Airline captains have a duty to protect their passengers. This
| RIGHTLY grants them near-total, absolute, and unquestionable
| authority over the conduct of their crew and all souls on
| board. Giving or forcing a duty to protect to or on police
| would do the same.
|
| That's bad.
|
| And because police are NOT extraordinary they don't have a
| parental-like duty to protect their children (the public). Nor
| are we their spouses or employees.
|
| As far as cynicism goes, they don't protect the interests of
| large corporations that's more the purview of politicians.
| Police are generally just enforcing the laws as written.
|
| The court decision and the cases it references you yourself
| linked to goes over some of my points.
|
| Many people respond with "but what about when the police..."
| but the egregious cases of misconduct from which they draw
| outrage are what are wrong and should be stopped-- not an
| absence of some duty to protect.
| walrus01 wrote:
| > Contrary to popular perception police have almost no powers
| beyond that of regular citizens. Citizens can make arrests
|
| Go make some citizens arrests or set yourself up as a
| detective investigating felony crimes as a private citizen
| and see what happens to you from the "real" police when they
| learn what you're doing...
| 1123581321 wrote:
| It's the same police reporting and behavior that chases down
| the person who steals a family's only car.
| azinman2 wrote:
| From your own link:
|
| "the duty to provide public services is owed to the public at
| large, and, absent a special relationship between the police
| and an individual, no specific legal duty exists"
|
| None of this says the actual role is to protect the rich and
| corporations. They get the same non specific legal duty at all.
| They could just as easily ignore Hertz.
|
| While I wouldn't be surprised that the rich get more
| responsiveness out of the police, I'm sure there are rich
| people too who also get ignored. Just like when my father had
| his phone stolen and we found via find my and IP logs the
| physical address of the thief, police refused to go retrieve it
| and arrest the thief.
| Tostino wrote:
| Different levels of wealth you and GP are talking about.
| Completely different.
| azinman2 wrote:
| My father lives in a wealthy zip code, and stolen phones,
| car breaks ins, traffic violations are usually the main
| types of crime there. Was giving an example to solidly that
| they have can use discretion.
| asimpletune wrote:
| It's weird that it's only hertz... this bizarre saga has been
| going on now for some time, but I haven't heard anything like
| this happen from one of the other big rental companies
| jopolous wrote:
| Crazy, I had something that could have escalated to a wrongful
| arrest with Hertz less than a week ago.
|
| Hertz initially gave me a car with a mechanical problem, so they
| swapped it out before we had even left the rental car lot.
|
| The attendant at the gate assured me they had updated the
| paperwork.
|
| They hadn't. I was on the phone with support for hours trying to
| fix this. They never fixed it and I had to pay for someone else's
| rental. They even told me that the car was not marked as stolen.
|
| In addition, when I returned the car, the attendant looked at me
| pretty funny and said it was good I never got pulled over.
|
| Nothing got done on this until I threatened to bring my company's
| travel coordinator into the mix (I work at a large company that
| spends a lot on Hertz rentals every year).
|
| Still waiting for a refund of the additional fees they charged
| for my "second rental car". The way it was handled by Hertz
| customer service and the location manager was an absolute joke.
|
| I'm not unique here either, after this experience I went on my
| company's internal chat and found tons of stories similar to
| this.
|
| There is either a big problem with the process at Hertz or a
| severe bug in their system that they aren't acknowledging.
| p1necone wrote:
| Awful customer service seems to be industry standard now.
| Companies have worked out that they can just entirely ignore
| any problems that aren't fixed by automated/scripted responses
| without cutting into their profits more than having proper
| customer support would.
|
| Hopefully some startups will realize they can attract customers
| by paying for customer support staff with basic reading
| comprehension skills (and not incentivising them to close
| tickets as fast as possible without actually confirming issues
| are fixed), but I'm not holding my breath.
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| > There is either a big problem with the process at Hertz or a
| severe bug in their system that they aren't acknowledging.
|
| Or it's simply shitty customer service: "Hertz: where the
| customer always has criminal intent"
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _it 's simply shitty customer service_
|
| I split time between cities where I don't need a car, and a
| town where I do. The plan was to rent when in the latter.
| Hertz was so horrible I wound up buying the one Subaru on the
| lot (after an interregnal Turo). Going into a dealership
| blind was literally less painful than dealing with their B.S.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| > Nothing got done on this until I threatened to bring my
| company's travel coordinator into the mix (I work at a large
| company that spends a lot on Hertz rentals every year).
|
| This is the first thing you should have done.
| fatneckbeardz wrote:
| their customers don't find this problem bad enough to stop
| doing business with them, (including your big company), so
| Hertz will continue doing what they have been doing.
|
| adding any additional checklists , training, or quality control
| to their existing process would cost money, and so would reduce
| profits.
|
| it is simple cost benefit analysis.
| stevespang wrote:
| m_antis89 wrote:
| hahthey really lived up to their name in the end!!
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| Offtopic, but perhaps illustrative: back when Hertz did very
| short term 'on demand' rentals the GPS system in the car was
| obviously faulty and I got a call from someone from Hertz asking
| when I was going to return then rental, in a disagreeable tone.
|
| I told them I'd already returned it (usually locking the car at
| the return location terminates the rental). They didn't accept
| this and proceeded to tell me I should return it and the various
| consequences of not doing so. I told them again I'd returned it
| and suggested that their management unit was faulty which still
| didn't convince them. I then told them that there was a Hertz
| rental office right there and I'd put someone in the office on
| the phone who could confirm that I had indeed returned the car.
| They also rejected this.
|
| At that point I told them that if they wanted their car they
| could find it where I told them it was and that they should fix
| their system and there was nothing else I could do for them. She
| made some vague threat and I got off the phone. I never heard
| anything about it again and was billed correctly.
| jawns wrote:
| > Claimants of wrongful arrest suits before the bankruptcy are
| left fighting a shell company left behind to handle the remaining
| debts of Hertz.
|
| ^ This is the final paragraph, but I wish the story went into
| more detail about it.
|
| The plaintiffs' lawyer alleges that there have been more than 300
| cases of wrongfully arrested customers since 2015, and that most
| of those cases were subject to the bankruptcy proceedings.
|
| So there are likely 150+ people who would ordinarily be able to
| seek recompense from the company -- but because it went through
| the bankruptcy process, now they get to wrestle with a shell
| company that has been crafted to protect Hertz as much as
| possible from financial liability.
|
| Meanwhile, the company gets to carry on and -- as this lawsuit
| shows -- commit the same injustices after emerging from
| bankruptcy.
| fatneckbeardz wrote:
| this has become standard practice in corporate America. It's
| done a lot with environmental damage:
|
| https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/publications/e...
| CSMastermind wrote:
| I rack up 90+ days of car rentals a year and have never had a
| problem with Enterprise and the additional insurance.
|
| If you're looking to rent a car and want to optimize for peace of
| mind and customer service over bare minimum cost, then I highly
| recommend going that route.
| [deleted]
| dapids wrote:
| Law enforcement should punish Hertz for using an emergency
| service (in a consistently poor manner) for a "clerical" error
| they caused. But they won't.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| I once rented a car that was several months out of date on its
| registration. Fortunately for me it was only discovered by
| parking enforcement, not an actual arrest, so the rental company
| gets to pay that ticket apparently. But it was a pretty awful
| shock to me to find this out.
| snapetom wrote:
| About 20 years ago, early in my career, I got into an argument
| with corporate and a rental car agency over an extra day because
| the agent did not understand that the day begins at 12:00 am.
|
| Since, then, I've had a paranoia that results in me, if I'm not
| directly handing off the car to a person, to take a picture of
| the car. I turn on meta data and the pic has the car, license
| plate, and enough of the drop off location in the background as
| scheduled. If there's any problems, I have the picture as backup.
|
| It came into play last year. Avis called me and asked, "Where's
| our car?" I had changed the drop off location and date via the
| app. I called loss prevention, they confirmed the change, and I
| sent them the pic. The agent instantly changed his tune from
| aggressive to puzzled and quickly dropped any harassment. No idea
| if the car was ever found, but the pic instantly stopped Avis
| from bothering me any further.
| listenallyall wrote:
| > the agent did not understand that the day begins at 12:00 am.
|
| But most car rentals _aren 't_ based upon calendar days, they
| are generally based upon 24-hour blocks that start and end at
| the time you drive the car out.
|
| Also, buddy, 20 years is a long time to hang onto a grievance
| about possibly being charged _one_ extra day... if that 's the
| level of your suffering in life, consider yourself pretty
| lucky.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Yes, remembering things is a form of privilege.
| [deleted]
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| I take photos of everything too. It's super easy,and cannot
| possibly hurt!
|
| (That being said, at least in my rental agreements, "day"
| starts 24 hrs after pickup time. I.e. If I picked car up at
| 09:23am, I'll get charged for 2nd day at 09:24am tomorrow...)
| simondotau wrote:
| For nearly ten years now, I have judiciously photographed every
| rental car I use. On pickup I take at least four photos of each
| quarter and anything I can find which could possibly be argued
| as damage. On drop off I also take photos of the car from four
| quarters.
|
| I've had, especially in Europe, multiple incidents where prior
| damage is described as "too minor to note" on pickup, but the
| guy handling returns has a very different opinion.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| "At least four photos"--why not just walk around the car with
| phone video running?
| wubbert wrote:
| >Lawyers for the customers say that the criminal theft reports
| are a way to recover lost inventory
|
| If the "inventory" (the car) is "lost," then wouldn't that imply
| that the renter has a car that they shouldn't have? I.E. stolen
| it? Or at the very least not returned it when they should have?
| mistrial9 wrote:
| maybe it is safer income for Hertz to err on the side of "yes
| it is stolen" even wrongfully
| jffry wrote:
| These lawsuits allege that the cars were legitimately rented by
| customers, but Hertz screwed up the paperwork and then
| incorrectly reported them as stolen, and their customers
| suffered the consequences.
| macintux wrote:
| As best I recall from previous times when this hit the news,
| Hertz's tracking was terrible, and customers had already
| returned the cars in question, or still had them but were
| paying for them.
|
| Update: see this other comment for more examples.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32966606
| mjevans wrote:
| I didn't even know they'd filed for, and emerged as a new company
| from, bankruptcy.
| crazygringo wrote:
| That's bizarre. One of the links gives more details within [1]:
|
| > _Hertz manages tens of millions of rentals each year, which
| makes these 30 or so stories exceptionally rare, but not any less
| bizarre. The recent claims don 't explain how exactly these mix-
| ups happen, but some of the renters reported switching vehicles,
| upgrading cars, or reporting mechanical issues before being
| approached by the law. One driver returned a vehicle for a flat
| tire and was given another to drive instead, and when the company
| did not complete paperwork for the second vehicle, the car was
| reported stolen and the police got involved. Another driver was
| alerted to an expired registration on her rental but was
| ultimately arrested before she could even return the car a few
| days later. Francis Alexander, an attorney who is representing
| some of the falsely-accused renters, says that Hertz's computer
| system has a "glitch" that has led to the company-wide pattern of
| reporting cars stolen._
|
| On the one hand, I can imagine that with employees not filling
| out forms/screens right and then clocking out, the manager comes
| in the next day and a car is missing, how do they know it _wasn
| 't_ simply stolen? Better call the police. Especially since if
| you wait two weeks to "be sure" the car doesn't come back, your
| chances of recovering it presumably plummet.
|
| On the other hand... employees mess up all the time, so it seems
| like there'd better be a damn solid reason to presume a vehicle
| stolen rather than just the regular employee mixup (like security
| cam footage). And the idea that a computer system could
| automatically alert police of supposedly stolen vehicles without
| needing a manager's triple-verification seems incredibly
| irresponsible and shocking.
|
| [1] https://www.thedrive.com/news/27976/people-are-being-
| arreste...
| SilverBirch wrote:
| To be honest, two weeks or not, if a car is stolen it's
| probably gone forever. It's not like the police are going to
| assign a detective track down Hertz's stolen car. They stick it
| on the system and if it happens to pass an officer they'll stop
| it. The probelm is, the only way it'll ping an officer is if
| it's still being driven around the area with the same number
| plates - ie, the probability of it actually being stolen are
| minimal.
| brigade wrote:
| Nationwide, at least 60% of stolen vehicles are recovered.
| CA, which has a 90% overall recovery rate, breaks it down
| further that motorcycles have under a 60% recovery rate,
| commercial trucks have an 80% recovery rate, and everything
| else is over 94%.
|
| I don't think the people impacted are renting motorcycles or
| commercial trucks...
| bink wrote:
| I'd bet that areas with the most stringent parking
| enforcement also have the highest stolen vehicle recovery
| rates. That seems more likely to me than the police
| actively seeking out and finding stolen vehicles.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Gonna go out on a limb as guess you're both right: the
| recovery rate's decent, but only because a pretty high
| percentage of stolen cars are simply abandoned (think:
| stealing cars for joy riding, which is _pretty damn common_
| in certain circles) and then found in that state, or used
| in some other crime or series of crimes and eventually
| swept up because the perpetrators get caught with the car
| while doing something else, _not_ because the cops put much
| effort into actually finding the cars.
|
| Considering the magnitude of property crimes I've seen them
| refuse to put any effort into whatsoever, I can't imagine
| they put special care into solving car thefts. Except when
| they can solve them basically by accident, which is
| literally the only way I've _ever_ seen them solve a theft.
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| It's about saying to their insurance that they followed
| protocol less that they expects the cops to do anything about
| it
| axiolite wrote:
| > the manager comes in the next day and a car is missing, how
| do they know it wasn't simply stolen?
|
| Preferably by checking surveillance camera footage _before_
| calling the cops.
| myself248 wrote:
| I work for automakers' test and development programs. Most
| companies have a sign-out procedure that involves the keys kept
| in an automated kiosk that will not release them until you've
| done the paperwork and submitted a form, and your manager has
| clicked OK on the confirmation.
|
| It's physically impossible to take the car without the system
| knowing who has it. If it has issues and you bring it back,
| guess what, you can't get the keys for the replacement until
| you've done the paperwork...
|
| The fact that a company whose literal job is to keep track of
| cars, can't manage a similar level of rigor, blows my mind and
| smacks of negligence. If any harm befell these people beyond an
| hour's hassle and apologies all around, I wish them all success
| in the courts.
|
| Some rental locations do something fairly similar. At the
| airports I've rented from, there's sort of a free-for-all on
| the floor itself, but then as you leave, your plate and
| paperwork are checked. Can't get over the severe-tire-damage
| strips until the system OKs you and the operator lowers the
| spikes. Why some locations lack a double-check, well, I suppose
| you'd have to ask them.
| SilverBirch wrote:
| Ok, now imagine that everyone you're working with is on
| minimum wage, and there's often no manager on shift. Oh, and
| the technology is from the 90s, because a single
| technological uplift project will soak up a decade of their
| profits.
| Tostino wrote:
| Then they should be dismantled as a company and parted off
| to pay for the damages they caused.
| [deleted]
| nhoughto wrote:
| The reducing customer friction arms race means if you can
| create a process that gives them the keys earlier or more
| "easily" you win, so if that process has an edge case where
| one in few hundred thousand gets arrested that might be seen
| as a net win, not how id design it but others have different
| tradeoffs!
| manholio wrote:
| > says that Hertz's computer system has a "glitch" that has led
| to the company-wide pattern of reporting cars stolen
|
| We meet again, my oldest and dearest enemy, SAP.
| Overtonwindow wrote:
| I was a Hertz customer for 20 years, but the customer service
| went downhill about eight years ago and it's never recovered. I
| always picked Hertz because it was the biggest, well, Hertz
| Hurts. I rented a car for a week, after a day I realized I didn't
| need the car, so I returned it. I still got charged for the full
| week.
|
| Hertz...Hurts.
| listenallyall wrote:
| Not really seeing why Hertz owes you a refund, you reserved the
| car for a full week.
| treeman79 wrote:
| Because he will do business with others that are more
| flexible. Customer lost for life.
| listenallyall wrote:
| Lol, show me the US rental car company that refunds
| customers if they return the car early.
| Overtonwindow wrote:
| It was not a refund. I had reserved the car, but did not
| pay in advance. I paid when I brought the car back.
| Specifically they charged my card when I brought it back.
| In the past, I have been able to return early and they
| just take it back and turn around and rented back out. It
| was an absolute surprise and that $700 they were not
| willing to back away from. So they did lose a customer
| for life. I Rent-A-Car at least once a month, I use
| Enterprise now.
| Aloha wrote:
| Enterprise, National, etc - Nearly everyone. You might
| pay a small fee for some, but its expected business
| practice.
| [deleted]
| MereInterest wrote:
| > Most of those cases were bundled into bankruptcy proceedings.
|
| This seems incredibly odd to me. Bankruptcy proceedings would be
| about monetary compensation, but that feels like it would only be
| one part of the proceedings. Knowingly making a false report of
| theft would be a criminal proceeding, an entirely separate realm
| from bankruptcy courts.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| I suspect the state would be pursuing criminal charges, if any.
| I would expect the victims to separately file civil suits.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Strictly speaking, you as a private litigant generally cannot
| make criminal charges - only the state does that. A civil suit
| is "these guys harmed me specifically and I want to be repaid",
| a criminal charge is "these guys are threats to society and
| should be thrown in jail". And the latter has a very high bar
| to meet for corporations, because corporations rarely have the
| capacity or mental state to actually meet that bar[0]. They
| _are_ machines, after all.
|
| In a civil suit, you are expected to be paid in money damages
| or _maybe_ injunctions. Those damages are construed to be the
| same as, say, owing money to a bondholder. Going bankrupt lets
| you wipe out those obligations; so presumably those pending
| cases might also get wiped out. But that 's also judge-
| dependent and fact-dependent, which is why they get wrapped up
| into the bankruptcy proceeding.
|
| [0] This is also why civil torts are almost always strict-
| liability. If _everything_ required intent, corporations would
| be above the law.
| nullc wrote:
| > [0] This is also why civil torts are almost always strict-
| liability. If everything required intent, corporations would
| be above the law.
|
| because of the lack of investigatory powers (e.g. can't seize
| their documents, wiretap their communications, search their
| facilities, etc.) civil cases could generally never work
| against _anyone_ if they had to show intent. If you get a
| judgement against you for a civil matter that requires intent
| you have really screwed up.
| eckesicle wrote:
| This is such an American problem. I love visiting the US, but boy
| am I glad that I don't live there.
|
| Everyone here in the comments is blaming Hertz, but really the
| problem is that the police are just arresting people willy-nilly
| without actually confirming the vehicle in question is really
| stolen. And even if they do stop to question someone, why are
| they pulling a gun on them, or even taking them back to the
| station before trying to de-escalate the situation?
|
| This story just reeks of a series of serious societal failures.
|
| Staff on minimum wage, dated systems and processes, overzealous
| police, insane court system (did you read the comments in that
| linked article? One poor man had to pay bail at 45k, lost his
| job, and a bunch of other fines!)
|
| I just couldn't imagine any one of these things happening where I
| am from in Europe.
| mef wrote:
| When the police see a car and run the plate and it comes back
| stolen, how should they "confirm the car is really stolen"?
| rdlw wrote:
| They should probably confirm the car is stolen when they mark
| it as stolen.
| trasz wrote:
| A responsible course of action, given Hertz history of false
| accusations, would be to ignore "stolen" cars that belong to
| Hertz. It's a lesser evil - even if it actually got stolen
| nothing bad will happen, Hertz is a wealthy company.
| wsh wrote:
| The usual procedure is for the police dispatcher to check
| with the law enforcement agency that entered the license
| plate into the database.
|
| In case of a rental car, a call to the local or corporate
| office of the rental company would also be appropriate, all
| the more so now that there's wide publicity about the problem
| of false or out-of-date theft reports.
| bell-cot wrote:
| For this purpose, they do not need to. if(
| car_theft->reporting_party == Hertz )
| car_theft->credibility = Probable_Clerical_Error;
| akira2501 wrote:
| The police aren't there to sort out paperwork issues. They
| aren't qualified for it. They're qualified to bring you to jail
| to await a bail hearing while they write a report about the
| incident. The rightful owner of the vehicle reported it stolen,
| there's not much else to do then clear yourself criminally and
| then restore yourself civilly.
|
| That's not to say that the arrest and bail processes don't need
| a lot of work, but I'm not sure there's a better structural
| alternative. Also, in the case of the individual with high
| bail, I can't find a reference to that particular case. Do you
| have one?
| josephcsible wrote:
| Maybe the police need a special code for "stolen, but the
| registered owner is Hertz", that they'd treat as casually as a
| traffic stop for a burned out taillight, rather than the felony
| stop that a reported-stolen car usually gets.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Why would they ever do that when having the car reported as
| stolen gives them probable cause to search the vehicle and
| driver? Hertz is making what they perceive as their job easier.
| zac23or wrote:
| Someday, someone will be killed because of it. And Hertz will
| respond like the surprised Pikachu meme.
|
| People's lives are nothing to corporations.
| gnu8 wrote:
| drstewart wrote:
| Jabrov wrote:
| lol wtf?
| smegsicle wrote:
| imagine the interaction between an african american male
| who righteously believes he has done nothing wrong and the
| police forces who righteously believe that he is driving a
| stolen vehicle
| benjaminpv wrote:
| I'm sure they'll treat the matter _very seriously_ and profess
| that _steps are being taken_ to prevent it happening again.
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