Hertz to pay $168M after falsely accusing customers of stealing rental cars

Dozens of consumers had shared tales on social media and broadcast tv packages of being arrested, “swatted” or stopped at border crossings after Hertz had incorrectly reported them to the authorities for stealing autos from its rental fleet.

Hertz claims 1000’s of renters steal automobiles. Prospects argue they’ve been falsely accused.

In lots of the circumstances, the shopper had paid for and correctly returned the automobile weeks or months prior — or had by no means rented a automobile in any respect.

Drew Seaser, an actual property appraiser in Colorado, realized of a warrant for his arrest in Georgia when he was stopped on the airport on the best way to Mexico along with his household. Seaser instructed CBS Information that he had by no means been to Georgia nor rented a automobile from Hertz. He was jailed for greater than 24 hours; the costs have been dismissed after his lawyer offered prosecutors with an alibi.

Paul-Anthony Knight stated on “Inside Version” that he was arrested after Hertz incorrectly filed a theft report in opposition to him. “All weapons drawn on me. I used to be thrown to the bottom. I used to be arrested. And I used to be locked up for over every week,” he stated. One other man, Julius Burnside, instructed this system that he was jailed for greater than six months over an faulty report.

It was not instantly clear whether or not Seaser, Knight and Burnside have been among the many claimants who settled with Hertz, which emerged from chapter in 2021. An legal professional for dozens of consumers who sued Hertz in Delaware didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

Hertz stated in February that “the overwhelming majority of those circumstances contain renters who have been many weeks and even months overdue returning autos and who stopped speaking with us effectively past the scheduled due date.”

However Hertz chief government Stephen M. Scherr was extra apologetic, saying in April on CNBC’s “Squawk Field” that “it’s not acceptable to Hertz to have any buyer, a single buyer type of caught up in a few of what’s occurred.” He stated the difficulty of false theft stories was “among the many first issues” he handled since taking the helm of the corporate in February. “A number of hundred individuals” have been impacted by the stories, he stated.

Inaccurate stories have been withdrawn after they have been found, Scherr stated, “but these individuals received caught, you realize, in a second” when the rescinding of the stories “wasn’t acknowledged” by regulation enforcement. The false stories have been “unlucky,” he stated.

Marisa Iati contributed to this report.