[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. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-09-24 23:00 UTC)