As an insurance adjuster I have received subrogation demands from Hertz for "repossession of a stolen vehicle". The "stolen vehicle" was legitimately rented from the branch an hour before Hertz decided to repossess it. The vehicle was sitting in my policyholder's driveway... I agree the theft data needs to be public.
You really want some hourly flacky that was following company policy and reading off a screen to do 4 years in prison? The better idea is to make the company pay the customers money, though it's kinda hard when it's in Bankruptcy. But still not impossible. Now if there is a manager or above that KNOWINGLY reported vehicles stolen that weren't, then you have a potential case. But the state would have to prove the employee KNOWNINGLY and maliciously filed to false report. The Employee's defense is simple, they were doing their job and it was an honest clerical error.
This is systemic. Corporate executives need to go to prison for the harm they cause people with this kind of negligence. Someone needs to be made example of, or theres no reason for anyone else in their position to not do the same thing.
@@Nightfighter82 yes. I want the flunkies who called it in to go to jail for causing people their trips to jail I ALSO want their corporate masters to pay in civil court. There's no reason to not hurt them all considering what they've done.
That shouldn't be a surprise, giving the fact that corporate America is on a trend to suck every last penny out of the average American as has been proven over and over since Reagan took office. They know America is going down the drain and wanna get out as soon as possible.
@@FrankHeuvelman not remotely correct. If they really thought America was going down the drain they'd be divesting from the US dollar. As would other nations' governments. Now, it may be that the US IS going down the drain, but they don't actually believe it to be true. Also, Congress keeps investing in companies in the US rather than buying foreign currency. So they don't think we're in tremendously big trouble either. Could they all be wrong? Yes. Could it be a hoodwink? Also maybe, but doubtful they'd all be in on it. You can't get seven people to agree to a restaurant, let alone on anything big.
We need to start sending CEOs to jail for the decisions they make like this. They should be investigating this like a kidnapping plot. These jerks have been getting people thrown in jail without consequences, and it needs to stop. Start charging whoever calls the cops. It’s not even car theft, at least at first.
@@DarthVader1977 the problem isn’t reporting the cars stolen. It’s NOT a reporting them returned then renting them out to somebody who gets arrested and has to spend a few days in jail until they can prove they rented the car after it was reported stolen.
I got a traffic ticket delivered to my house because Hertz let someone use my name and address to rent a car. They said they were charging my credit card on file. I called Hertz. I had rented the car in Florida a few months earlier. I had not been anywhere near Florida for twenty years. The credit card they used was in someone else's name. Something tells me that Hertz doe not do a good job of verifying the identities of people who rent cars from them.
Hertz is acting like a boxed in dangerous animal. The animal knows it is trapped and most likely will lose the ensuing battle, but dammit, its going out fighting. The rental car industry is changing and like a dinosaur, Hertz is on its way out. Rideshare, Uber, Lyft and other internet solutions (private lease) are replacing them.
Yes. I can also tell you as someone that worked in the industry if the names driver doesn't match the card you don't rent it. Period. If someone is placing their card down but are legitimately renting it for someone else to drive then you rent the car to the card holder and add an additional drive to the contract (which in most places there is a fee to do)
Steve, I believe it was one of your earlier videos about Hertz, where a man was arrested over a car he was currently renting. It turned out that a previous customer had become delinquent and a theft report filed. The car was subsequently recovered, but Hertz neglected to alert the authorities, so the car was still in the system as a stolen vehicle. If that has been their practice for some time, there could indeed be a great many customers improperly charged with theft.
I don't see why an arrest would take place in that situation. The man had a current rental agreement and could show he had legal possession of the car. The police never should have arrested that man.
Its amazing that this has gotten this far..... two years ago, a non hetrz company goofed and gave away my reserved car in florida, I was inconvenienced by this for about 45 minutes, that suddenly doesnt seem like that much of a deal.
Working in a large corporation using 32 unique sets of software, my guess is 2/3 is caused by undetected data mismatches and the other 1/3 human error. It's pretty ridiculous how much time is wasted correcting errors that occur in system specifically design to prevent and eliminate errors. The purpose of computers is not being fulfilled.
If things are going halfway decent, you keep reserve cars for exactly this case. It is not a question of if such things happen, only when and how often. If they are in bankruptcy now, things were _definitely_ not going halfway decent for a while. They propably had no reserves. And if things are not going half decent, chance are higher for such mistakes to happen.
It depends on intent. If it is legitimately an accident, then it's not criminal. If the person filing the claim knows it is false, then that would be criminal. Not "should be" but "is" a criminal act.
When I worked at Hertz as a manager Trainee we had to report cars as stole after around 30 days. We never did anything stupid like this and we only had a couple cars go rogue a year. What was shady was that we were trained to push unnecessary insurance on people when renting. California required us insure any renter and you are buying insurance on top of that.
Steve years ago my wife rented a car from Hertz in Florida and returned the car in Dallas Texas at a Hertz location. The Florida Hertz reported the car and stolen and my wife was picked up on a Saturday at the house, sent to jail, transported back to Florida where I posted bond. After spending 5000 on a lawyer and multiple trips back to court for another postponement the case was finally dropped. Your reporting is great but there is more to the story than you have report. The Florida detective that investigated the reported stolen rental called the Garland Texas police to investigate. What worked in my wife's favor is the location where the care was found was in the Garland Hertz location with the keys in the car. The car was returned and the keys were dropped in the night drop box. What a crazy experience. My wife was locked up for over 3 weeks for their false reporting.
@@ceddavis Probably not a slam dunk, and possibly a likely loser. There are lots of reasons that dropping a rental car off when they're closed is a bad idea, and in this case there may not have been any paperwork showing that the car was returned. If it was "found" after it was reported stolen there may have been nothing to prove that she didn't actually steal the car and have somebody return it only after the arrest.
What upsets me about this is that some human signed off of filing these false police claims. But because they work for Hertz they have no responsibility? Similar thing happened during the housing mortgage bubble when they were repoing and evicting people who were not behind on their mortgages.
Because many in the fool public(politicians and judges not excluded) don't have the cognitive ability to avoid anthropomorphizing non-sentient abstractions. Which just builds the whole system on a foundation of fictions and the disconnect results in many problems. "Those corporations up in their big corporation buildings being all corporationy"
Speaking of filing claims... Hertz, doing poor enough as a business to presently be filing for bankruptcy, could have been making insurance claims for vehicles reported stolen. (Remember the malfeasance perpetrated by Wells Fargo?) If I were they (insurers), I would be looking into each and every claim. Hypothetically, the information gleaned from unsealed court documents might be a good starting place (if I hadn't already been investigating).
It may have been poor business practices that pushed Hertz into bankruptcy, it might just be they needed to cover the costs of acquiring the cars they expected to need and due to something, say a pandemic requiring travel restrictions, drastically decreased the number of rentals...
@@michigangeezer3950 -- Perhaps they will now. Any one agency may have only seen a handful of reports from them, and ignored weird cases, chalking them up as paperwork issues and not thinking anything further about it. Now they will hopefully hear about the problems, and future reports from Hertz will be treated the same way as future reports of the big bad wolf by the kid who cried "wolf" when there was none.
In these cases, it seems that the warrants are largely properly issued, but based on erroneous/false reports from Hertz. It is much like if a person calls 911 and makes false statements to try and get a neighbor arrested, a spouse taken away, or a rival gamer shot by a police tactical team.
To file a criminal complaint, you have to swear they broke a law, which means INTENTIONALLY doing something illegal. Mistakenly (typically even being grossly negligent) making a charge is not a criminal act. If the negligence is bad enough, you might be able to sue in civil court. Even that is tough case to prove. But criminal charges are just not going to happen unless a prosecutor thinks he can prove criminal intent.
@@markdoldon8852 I appreciate your feedback on multiple posts. I agree, no Criminal charges are likely. But that does not stop people from consulting their attorney, filing suit and then electing to have a jury hear the case at trial! The court case will then determine if there is any negligence or liability for their corporate behavior/actions. Having a customer wrongfully arrested and denied his or her liberties is a major malfunction/error with resulting implications, even if it is just a result of Hertz's lacking corporate software or standards, versus some employee who made the call. They deserve nothing but bankruptcy at this point in my opinion from what I have read.
I'm sure there are a whole host of reasons why none of this is being treated as filing a false police report, which would be criminal instead of civil. (Class A Misdemeanor here in TN.) But I haven't a clue what those reasons would be. Anybody care to explain it to the non-lawyer in the audience?
@@markdoldon8852 ^^ this ^^ Why is that hard for people to figure out? The system isn't perfect, but how fucked up would it be if it was dangerous to file a police report because you could go to jail for being wrong about something?
@@markdoldon8852 I get what you're saying, mens rea, but isn't there something about a pattern or practice? From the sounds of things, Hertz may have had a general policy of sending in these reports, and that's not a simple mistake. Obviously, that information will have to wait on what comes out of the bankruptcy court, so I know I'm being speculative here. EDIT to add: Is your point that it's very hard to show intent in these sorts of cases? Hard enough that it's just not worth trying to make the case except in the most egregious situations?
Hey Steve, love your videos! I worked 2 years in a small, locally owned rental department that was part of a new car dealership. I’m willing to bet that the realtor had his identity stolen by someone that rented and stole from Hertz in Georgia. We had it happen only once in my time, and the only reason it was caught is because the identity thief stole the identity of a friend of my manager. My manager stalled while I phoned the police from another room, but the guy got cold feet while waiting for us to verify his insurance, and left. What a close call that was
Might have qualified them for "lost revenue" in their insurance policy, due to no acces to the vehicle for rental. That'd give them an incentive to report the vehicle stolen.
Most rental companies are self-insured. However, damages to a rental car, including theft, can be billed against the renter's insurance policy. I had a few of these fake theft claims come across my desk, and the moment I asked any questions the subrogation demand was immediately withdrawn.
Insurance companies earn a profit because, on average, insurance policies cost more than you'll get. If you own a few cars the risk makes buying insurance important. If you own a few hundred thousand cars buying insurance becomes stupid.
That's the whole idea. At its core, a corporation is nothing more than a liability shield. If you or I kill someone, we go to jail. If a corporation kills someone, they pay a fine. Unless they're bankrupt, I guess.
Your missing a BIG part of this story. Many of these cars had reports of theft made. Then they where returned to hertz and rented or sold to other customers who where then arrested because hertz failed to notify police the car had been recovered. This is straight up negligence.
As a victim of this from another company. It is so they can charge thousands of dollars or go to prison. In South Carolina if you're late by minutes you are guilty of grand larceny. It makes them millions.
That is simply not true. The only fee that can be charge is the daily or weekly rate on the contract. Yes you are into the next day or week if it is not returned at the exact time you rented it, but the rate itself can not change and any overage is based on the contracted amount.
@@hechticgaming7193 you’re missing the point. The company files criminal charges against you for “theft”. And that’s gonna be separate from any charges from being late.
@@stephenrich3029 no I'm not. In every State I've worked in the industry you can't charge for theft to any card. If its indeed stolen you can continue to charge the contract rate until you get the car back, either by repo or the cops impounding it. After that all other charges have to be recouped in court.
My pastor friend bought a new truck from Hertz in the US, it had a Canadian sticker on it but my friend didn't realize it and Hertz didn't disclose it. Hertz charged him the full Canadian price for the truck even though he paid un US currency which added 20% to the actual cost of the truck. He realized the scam when he got home and took the truck back (In my state you have 3 days back out of the sale). Hertz refused to take the truck back until the pastor went to the police so Hertz decided to take the truck back.
Was only a matter of time before they were called out on this scam. Good to hear they filed for bankruptcy but it's just a move to not have to pay back those they scammed.
Hertz deputized local, state, and federal law enforcement as collections agencies. Hertz shouldn't be allowed to hide in bankruptcy from the coming class action lawsuits.
As someone that worked in the rental car industry for both small and large companies I can tell you that the industry standard is to call all day overs and see what the issue is (and this is if they didn't drop a car at a mechanic or dealership, as that is who you call then) and to automatically charge the card on file for a week more no matter if it was daily or weekly rental. As long as the card goes through you don't stress. If it doesn't go through then you call for 3 days, if no response at end of 3 days then you start repo processes internally. I can count the times that happened on 1 and a half hands in the 4 years that I spent in the industry.
Will the records include enough data for someone to track down everyone accused? If the turnip wasn't already running dry, this seems like a goldmine for some lawyer.
This is something that gets claimed, yes. It's loss of income, but most companies just pay it out as loss of use. It's usually paid based off of what it would cost to rent that car to somebody.
I’ve worked for a Hertz competitor in the past and have been a vendor providing doing vehicle maintenance and service. I know with the company I worked for some of our thefts were from unauthorized employees using the cars for personal use sometimes up to a week or more having taken the car from an unsecured storage lot or even out the front gate with the guise of moving the vehicle to an authorized location but not doing so and keeping the car for personal use. I know of one case where two employees (both related) doing a side hustle and renting out company cars themselves they were eventually caught. As a vendor I know they do long term and short term rentals for Lyft drivers I can see how one of them say misses a couple payments but continues using the car for Lyft also some individual branches are poorly managed and they sometimes loose track of a vehicle either by forgetting it at a shop or even parking them in auxiliary lots and forgetting about them. I’ve had more than one branch we dealt with call looking for one of their cars sometimes we had it other times we didn’t.
Steve: The problem is exponentially worse than anyone imagines. This is what I believe needs to happen. A class action with Hertz being required to advertise for injured parties. I have never rented from Hertz though I witnessed this 1st hand. Twenty years ago I had an incident where I was detained over night. I ended up paying a 10 dollar fine. While there I met a guy that travels the USA making portfolios for comedians to help them attain work, photos of them performing, their name on the marquee etc. Well some one T boned his car, not his fault, his car was not drive able. He had to drive to his next job and ultimately home so he rented a car. He paid whatever and expected the at fault insurance to settle with hertz and him before he signed off on the accident claim. He did not steal the car. Hertz would not wait for the balance of their money and unbeknownst to him reported him as a car thieve. He told me he was not worried and that once he saw the Judge he expected to be set free because he had all the paper work on renting the car. The guy was an honest generous hard working victim of Hertz. Hertz hurts. I remember not being able to call out on the phone system because it was not compatible with who I was calling. This guy insisted I use his 3 way billing system he had set up for being on the road. Probably saved my job and dramatically improved my case outcome.
There are maybe about 6 national brands. So if you are travelling you have limited options. If you are flying you generally are renting at the airport which can be very limited.
Just found your channel...love it. As for your question why Hertz was doing this? Pressure on Managers to control their inventory. Any outstanding contracts were pushed over to recovery "teams". Then there is a failure of their computer systems, ie not enough actual servers. That would be a "capital improvement" that they refused to spend.
Steve, your suspicion is correct, and it's not just Hertz. Many years ago I was asked to fly 2400 miles to PA to pick up a new corporate airplane. However, due to weather the airline was unable to get into PA and dropped me off in NJ. I rented a car from a major rental firm intending to drive the last 200 miles. Crossing the Pocono's the highway was closed by the state patrol because of a major snow storm; causing me to spend 2 days in an old motel along with many other travelers. Most cars then didn't have 4 wheel drive and the state mounties said only those with 4 wheel drive vehicles were allowed to leave, luckily I was able to hitch a ride. I called the rental firm and notified them that I had to leave the car at the motel, giving them all the information as to who had the keys, why, etc. . The rental attendant on the telephone said he was copying the info and then gave me his name. The motel manager now had the keys to about 20 cars in his parking lot. I heard nothing more from the rental company. Three months later I get a call from the PA state police. The officer informed me that I had stolen the car and there was a 'warrant for my arrest'. He asked where the car was located. I explained all giving him the details including the employee name. The officer called back two weeks later. The car was still at the motel. The motel manager himself had called the company to report the car with no action on their part. The car rental employee had quit months before, and maybe forgot. It was just one of those things the officer said, case closed and "Have a great day". I never received any communication from the car rental company-not even a final bill.
There's a period in time where this first started circulating with insurance adjusters, and what we were learning was it was a "system malfunction" there's no ETA on fix.
And do it from jail. You better have a lawyer (and money) in that case. Otherwise you sit in jail for 12-24 months waiting for trial with no way to gather evidence in your defense.
Identity theft thing was my first thought but my second thought was that it's probably rare for identity theft to be an isolated incident. If there were ID theft, the people being arrested would probably have had a myriad of other incidents of purchases of goods and services in their name.
Steve I came across a 2017 article you wrote for R&T on the Renault Alliance. Very good. I guess you now know I am a car nut if articles like this come up in my feed.
Years ago, a car rental company contacted me saying they wanted their car back. I told them I didn't rent a car nor was I ever close to their location. I asked them if there policy includes a random search on the internet for people with the same name and harass them. I told them to use whatever information they collected at the time of the rental. He hung up. For all I know, there is an arrest warrant for me in Iowa. Sounds similar to this story.
It would be interesting to compare auto theft rate from Hertz to the rest of the rental care industry. Also, some of the blame should be going to the law enforcement agencies. It seems like they are just taking the Hertz complaint, no doing any real investigation, and putting warrants out.
Georgia seems to be a unique state when it comes to proving your identity. I have been arrested in Georgia with an arrest warrant where the only thing on it that was "correct" was my name. Different race, different birthday, different birth year / different age, different driver's license number, different social security number. The officer still arrested me and took me to jail for the weekend. The officer's opinion was we will let the judge sort it out Monday. The judge said I was lucky he was in a good mood, dismissed the case and gave me a warning that he didn't want to see me in his court again. (Edited for typos because voice to text doesn't like me)
@@deusvult6920 That's an even longer story involving how Active duty military members were 2nd class citizens in the city of Columbus GA in the late 90s
Thank you for that comment, it's good to know what states to stay out of and not take my money to. Seems like almost every state has some sort of nonsense going on, this one's not much better in some ways.
This once happened to me by Enterprise because I was ONE HOUR LATE. We had an emergency and even called to inform them of the situation. But, a bully I went to school with ended up working at that particular location! I snapped like a light stick! Yes, it was resolved without charges. Also, I ran that little shit out of the company!
I'm one of the people you are talking about. I live in Oregon and worked in Las Vegas for about 2 years. I spent 10's of thousands of dollars with Hertz. I ALWAYS paid my bill. If they needed a car and I had time left on my contract, they would list it stolen so the COPS would pull me over...... They put something on my "permanent" record. I haven't been able to rent a car, from ANY rental company, in over 10 years.
I just rented a car with Hertz and now understand how this could happen. Total incompetence! and you can bet I'm saving my record showing I returned the car.
Not only do they get your credit card number but they take a copy of your license. Judge says: these records must be unsealed. Hertz responds: oh that hurts! lololol, I couldn't help myself.
I was in a traffic accident and my insurance company paid for rental car while my truck was being fixed. Enterprise Rental called me and said I need to bring the car back in before a certain date. I told them to call my insurance company they are paying for it. A day or two later Enterprise called me and said I could keep the car until my truck was fixed. Must be they promised someone else the car I had but gave it to me? They didn't say I stole it but still a big pain in the butt and my insurance dealt with it.
I used to work at uhaul and we would get an influx of reservations near the end of the month. We would get people coming in to rent a truck with no reservation and if their rental request overlapped with a reservation we would discuss possible options like a different size truck (usually a smaller truck) or a different time slot. If I didn't trust the person to come back on time, I would deny them the rental. Occasionally, we would get customers that were denied a rental at a different branch and they would lie just to get a truck knowing that they would not bring it back before the next reservation. We would charge the customer a huge late fee. Perhaps Hertz would report vehicles stolen to get their vehicle back to accommodate reservations? Seems like a bad practice if they did.
They just have poor checks & balances prior to filing reports. Most will be situations where the car is returned/recovered and re-rented prior to verifying that the car is off the hot sheets. The one guy mentioned was either a victim of identity theft or a rental agent attaching the wrong driver profile to the rental in question. Either of which should have been fleshed out by upper management prior to reporting the vehicle stolen. At Enterprise we had to wait 30 days before making a report. This was to exhaust all internal recovery efforts and to ensure that we didn't wrongly report a vehicle or customer to the authorities.
In my experience with Hertz, a major profit driver is the management of receipt and return of the rental fleet inventory. Most of the fleet is leased! The lease includes the cost, the date and place of receipt and the date and place of return. The cost is a percentage of invoice per month in the fleet; this was 1% in 1990 when I was there. Hertz is predicting how many units it needs in each place and for how long. They negotiate with the manufactures which vehicles will be delivered and where and the return date and conditions. Conditions include the physical condition and the mileage. The vehicles that are damaged, driven too much or not returned on their returned date become the property of Hertz. The actual deprecation rate for new cars is much higher than the lease cost, so each vehicle not accepted for return is an additional loss for Hertz. Each local office is responsible to return as many vehicles as possible. So if a vehicle is approaching it's mileage limit, they will stop renting it. If a vehicle is due to be returned in the next few days, stop renting it. A lot of these things are not really in their control, when a customer rents for the weekend and the car's return date is the following Tuesday, they would rent it out, but if the customer calls and extends the rental the local manager is screwed! They will miss the return date. Managers do not want to be the ones that miss the buy back, so they report the rental stolen to make their numbers look better. The losses caused by missing the buy back are charged to insurance, making the P&L look much better. You might remember in the 80s when you could rent a Lincoln for $19.95 a day, that was because Ford could not sell the big cars and they agreed to put them in the rental fleet and only charge the Tempo cost, which was less than 1/2 the Lincoln. As long as the Lincolns were returned Hertz made out fine, but if they missed a buy back date, the real depreciation was more than $5,000 over the amount in the lease. When Hertz has to take cars to the auction, the rentals don't do well, especially if they are all the same color.
I had a rental car from Hertz die on the Major Degan Expressway in NY City. It got towed by a Hertz contractor to a repair place in the Bronx. It was an adventure to get to my home in Kingston, NY(90 miles north). But, the real adventure was getting to someone inside the Hertz organization to close out my contract. My memory was that it was a two day process with calling a phone number and then being redirected multiple times.
A Towman here. I'm the primary tow service for a large vehicle rental company, not Hertz. As a portion of my serving them, I deal with picking up vehicles that have been "converted". That is the term used for vehicles that recently were "in the wind", location unknown. The company is very hesitant to put a vehicle on the "Hot Sheet" as stolen as there may be problems down the line having that VIN attached to the list. I probably handle 50 "converted" vehicles a year for them.
In NC it got so bad with late rentals or actual theft, the Legislation made a law called “failure to return rental property”. Not sure if the rental company gets compensation which may be why this may be happening.
I use to watch videos from this group that pulled cars out of lakes/rivers. It was amazing how many turned out to be supposedly stolen Hertz cars in the Tennessee rivers. Makes you wonder now if there is more to the story? Too bad Paul Harvey isn't still around to tell us.
I reserved a car from Hertz when I was planning on going to Florida but cancelled the rental a couple of weeks prior to the trip. Imagine my surprise when I got Florida toll booth bills in the mail. I found out that they (Hertz) had rented a car to someone yet issued the contract in my name and billed me for the rental. Upon contacting Hertz, they did the right thing and reversed the charges and contacted whoever runs the toll system to get those charges reversed as well. It doesn't sound like they do that anymore.
Don't those cars have a separate GPS system on top of the manufacturer one? How hard would it be to do that in case they dismantle the factory system ? Just a thought when they are dealing with property that's constantly moving?
My son worked for Enterprise and it wasn’t uncommon for people to rent a car and not return it a few days or up to a month late. They just kept dinging the card and as long as the card accepted it, they let it go. Here’s another thought though. The people who don’t return their rental really mess up the scheduling. Most of the cars have to be rented to turn a profit, so they don’t have a lot of extra vehicles sitting on the lot. When you have 8 min vans that were reserved for spring break and 4 of them aren’t brought back in time, customers get very upset. They rented the van far and advance and now they don’t have their vacation vehicle. Seems like some people can’t rent the van when they want it, so they rent it a few days early when it’s available and then bring it back till maybe a week late.
A coworker got a HUGE bill from Hertz because her rental car had bullet holes in it (days after she turned it in). She pointed out that no one mentioned this when she turned it in. Since there were bullets involved, the police got involved and it turns out an employee had leant it to a friend who was involved in drug dealing and got caught up in a firefight.
I will say that in my experience, rental shops don't always look at ID, but I tend to use Avis since I've never really had a problem with them. I think my credit card and my "avis preferred" are tied together in their system, and it allows them to streamline the paperwork.
Isn't it sad that a company can report a car stolen based solely on a rental contract. But the named person is assumed guilty, arrested and has to prove his innocence to be released. Why is this not a civil matter since it is a contracts case?
Because taking the car with no intent to return it is a criminal act, even if it is first rented. (I believe Steve has talked about "conversion" before.)
As The Scooter Guy said, if you have a contract to rent a car for seven days you have to return it by the end of the seventh day. If it's then reported stolen the police have to act...and if they find you in possession of the car well, oops on you. Moral of the story is don't assume you can change a contract without the consent of the other party.
@@TheRealScooterGuy Thank you for your valid comment. What is sad is if this was a contract between two individuals, the police would likely return the property and call it a "he said/she said" civil matter. The intent has been assumed as a matter of fact. Eluding, concealment or deception can show intent of theft but on its face the issue begins and ends with the contract. Depending on your state and what is delineated in the contract, a contract can be changed, amended or canceled by whatever means is allowed by the contract or state law. Many contracts allow for the changing of a contract in writing, by phone or by some digital means as long as there is acknowledgement by both parties. If party A says the car is stolen and party B says it is not by contract or by change in the contract then property is returned once proof of ownership is shown and the terms of the contract is to be handled as a civil matter. Many of accused by Hertz said they had extended their rental and their card charges reflected that but that did not save them from being charged and jailed. More Orwellian tea anyone?
Agree with other comments that if the Hertz "System" is that bad and people go to jail they should as an offset start with the CEO and have those executives spend the same amount of time in jail. It might encourage Hertz to improve their "System." As SL points out there are 3,000 people a year who don't know they are criminals until they try to cross a border into Canada or Mexico or are otherwise stopped by the police on a routine traffic stop. The 230 or so complaints are just those who found out they had been targeted by Hertz. Fortunately this has never happened to me but I have had other similar issues on a more minor scale such as here in Las Vegas at McCarran Airport (aka Reid Airport) wherein parked for a few days while out of town and came back and paid on my way out. A couple of weeks later did the same thing and they wanted to charge me from the date of my original visit. I fortunately had gotten the receipt from the first time and still had this in my glove box. Otherwise I was looking at a $250 bill for parking at the long-term lot.
It’s not just that Hertz reported people for stealing cars, it’s that Hertz _falsely_ reported people for stealing cars. The reason why is that Hertz has a faulty system for keeping track of their cars and rather than upgrade theirs system for tracking their own cars, Hertz reports the cars as stolen.
Vinwiki has videos of this and why they do what they do, also its not stealing if you hand the car to them something about theft by conversion or somthing.
Omgoodness… I hope I don’t end up being accused in Ga. I used to live in Atlanta and I had to rent automobiles every week due to company travel. I never rented from Hertz… but I did rent from just about every other company… always returned the rental though.
Somehow, someway, for some reason, there is a monetary gain happening. It may be as simple as deferred taxes owed due to reporting the loss ,even if found later… I smell a Fargo level scam going on.
What I think people should get is those who caused the false car theft reports to go to jail for a long time. If for no other reasons, at least to set an example. Also, this data should be requested from every single car renting company in the country, and similar actions should be taken for the intentionally-erroneous theft reports filed by those companies and their employees.
I had Hertz send me a letter claiming that I hadn't returned a car I rented a year previously. Fortunately, I still had the printed receipt when I returned the car. The reason I kept the receipt was that the whole rental experience was such an ordeal ( lost reservation, wrong car, etc.) I decided to retain the drop-off receipt. I never rented from those clowns again.
I have rented cars through Hertz hundreds of times over my career, and I was TERRIBLE at contacting Hertz when I went beyond the return date which was very often. A couple of days and I'd hear nothing then I would usually receive a call and a text to contact them at which point I'd call and extend the rental. This was always handled without incident. Not once were the police called. I don't know if I'm lucky or that my status as a frequent customer (Presidents circle) made a difference. In any event, I found it odd that they weren't more aggressive.
Different employees, or different time-frame, or as you suggested, your status as a frequent customer may have all had an effect on how you were treated.
I rented a cheap econobox from Budget. They didn't have one when I went to pick it up so they gave me a new Toyota 4Runner for the same price. NICE! The windshield was hit by a rock (small crack) they didn't charge me. Budget has been good every time I've used them.
Hertz said the car had been stolen, why should they be allowed to keep that car after the report is found to be false? They broke the law by filing a (provably) false claim, why do they get to keep the fruits of their malfeasance? How many times has the same car been 'stolen'? It would be a fun read, to see which dealerships had the most infractions, what type of vehicle was reported most often, the ethnic background of people being reported as car thieves. The little things make for the best reading...
Steve, I used to be a Station Manager with Hertz at the Atlanta Airport. You have no idea how screwed up they really are, especially given who the regional manager was at the time. Complete mismanagement and clueslessness.
@Sean Embry If you paid for all of their insurance, any accident should have been covered. If a car breaks down, Hertz is supposed to provide a replacement within 2 hours (company standard but may vary due to volume). In no way should you have been made to pay for the towing, you should have been reimbursed at the very least and given a free rental. But, this is the same tired old excuse big companies use, "oh, it was the franchise." BS!!!! If Hertz name is on anything then they're responsible. Steve can tell you more about "respondeat superior" and how that works.
@Sean Embry They were mismanaged. When I worked for them they were extremely profitable so I don't know if they were bought by private equity group or a hedge fund but they're really gone downhill but that could be because they only cared about their corporate clients like IBM. Once IBM began to fade so did Hertz profits. I do know that if you booked through a travel agent you got a better rate; Hertz allowed them to undercut everything else. But, rental rates varied based on time of day, flight information, which day of the week it was and too many other variables to get into. It was shady to say the least.
I bet a lot of them were just a case of laziness on the part of the agent. They call a couple times and give up and report the vehicle stolen. FWIW my phone may lay around in the house for hours and not get answered.
Those number say through out the country they report almost 10cars a day stolen. Last time I rented a car I also had to buy their insurance or provide proof that my insurance would
As an insurance adjuster I have received subrogation demands from Hertz for "repossession of a stolen vehicle". The "stolen vehicle" was legitimately rented from the branch an hour before Hertz decided to repossess it. The vehicle was sitting in my policyholder's driveway... I agree the theft data needs to be public.
Steve needs to pin this one. ^^^
Well, that may just be the answer to why they were doing it. Insurance scam.
@@TheRealScooterGuy I agree.
Yeah, something is really messed up with all of this.
I figured it would likely have something to do with insurance.
Falsely reporting a felony carries a four year prison term in Michigan.
Find out whose fingers dialed the cops and make them answer to a jury.
Per instance
They would get off if they say they were just reporting what the computer said to report.
You really want some hourly flacky that was following company policy and reading off a screen to do 4 years in prison? The better idea is to make the company pay the customers money, though it's kinda hard when it's in Bankruptcy. But still not impossible. Now if there is a manager or above that KNOWINGLY reported vehicles stolen that weren't, then you have a potential case. But the state would have to prove the employee KNOWNINGLY and maliciously filed to false report. The Employee's defense is simple, they were doing their job and it was an honest clerical error.
This is systemic. Corporate executives need to go to prison for the harm they cause people with this kind of negligence. Someone needs to be made example of, or theres no reason for anyone else in their position to not do the same thing.
@@Nightfighter82 yes. I want the flunkies who called it in to go to jail for causing people their trips to jail I ALSO want their corporate masters to pay in civil court.
There's no reason to not hurt them all considering what they've done.
Honestly if they're unwilling to tell this to the public, the numbers must be way worse than they should be
That shouldn't be a surprise, giving the fact that corporate America is on a trend to suck every last penny out of the average American as has been proven over and over since Reagan took office.
They know America is going down the drain and wanna get out as soon as possible.
They're probably looking at as if it's bad press regardless of what the numbers are.
@@waroftheworlds2008 it’s worse press to try to hide it and let everyone wonder what kind of crap they’re up to.
Think of Biden's supposed voter count and you'll know why this is happening...
@@FrankHeuvelman not remotely correct. If they really thought America was going down the drain they'd be divesting from the US dollar. As would other nations' governments. Now, it may be that the US IS going down the drain, but they don't actually believe it to be true.
Also, Congress keeps investing in companies in the US rather than buying foreign currency. So they don't think we're in tremendously big trouble either.
Could they all be wrong? Yes. Could it be a hoodwink? Also maybe, but doubtful they'd all be in on it. You can't get seven people to agree to a restaurant, let alone on anything big.
We need to start sending CEOs to jail for the decisions they make like this. They should be investigating this like a kidnapping plot.
These jerks have been getting people thrown in jail without consequences, and it needs to stop. Start charging whoever calls the cops.
It’s not even car theft, at least at first.
Exactly.
If corporations are people then they should be jailed.
@@ContraNovae and in extreme cases, executed.
@@brianbarber5401 That used to be less necessary; corporations originally died with their founder.
@@DarthVader1977 the problem isn’t reporting the cars stolen. It’s NOT a reporting them returned then renting them out to somebody who gets arrested and has to spend a few days in jail until they can prove they rented the car after it was reported stolen.
@@DarthVader1977 No, that’s obviously you
I got a traffic ticket delivered to my house because Hertz let someone use my name and address to rent a car. They said they were charging my credit card on file. I called Hertz. I had rented the car in Florida a few months earlier. I had not been anywhere near Florida for twenty years. The credit card they used was in someone else's name. Something tells me that Hertz doe not do a good job of verifying the identities of people who rent cars from them.
Hertz is acting like a boxed in dangerous animal. The animal knows it is trapped and most likely will lose the ensuing battle, but dammit, its going out fighting. The rental car industry is changing and like a dinosaur, Hertz is on its way out. Rideshare, Uber, Lyft and other internet solutions (private lease) are replacing them.
Yes. I can also tell you as someone that worked in the industry if the names driver doesn't match the card you don't rent it. Period. If someone is placing their card down but are legitimately renting it for someone else to drive then you rent the car to the card holder and add an additional drive to the contract (which in most places there is a fee to do)
IF THE CREDIT CARD WAS IN SOMEONE ELSE'S NAME, HOW COULD YOU BE CHARGED?
Steve, I believe it was one of your earlier videos about Hertz, where a man was arrested over a car he was currently renting. It turned out that a previous customer had become delinquent and a theft report filed. The car was subsequently recovered, but Hertz neglected to alert the authorities, so the car was still in the system as a stolen vehicle. If that has been their practice for some time, there could indeed be a great many customers improperly charged with theft.
That's America okay...
I don't see why an arrest would take place in that situation. The man had a current rental agreement and could show he had legal possession of the car. The police never should have arrested that man.
@@mexicanspec key word is should. Police do not always do what they should.
@@mexicanspec that's why I wear this mask.
Its amazing that this has gotten this far..... two years ago, a non hetrz company goofed and gave away my reserved car in florida, I was inconvenienced by this for about 45 minutes, that suddenly doesnt seem like that much of a deal.
Working in a large corporation using 32 unique sets of software, my guess is 2/3 is caused by undetected data mismatches and the other 1/3 human error. It's pretty ridiculous how much time is wasted correcting errors that occur in system specifically design to prevent and eliminate errors. The purpose of computers is not being fulfilled.
If things are going halfway decent, you keep reserve cars for exactly this case. It is not a question of if such things happen, only when and how often.
If they are in bankruptcy now, things were _definitely_ not going halfway decent for a while. They propably had no reserves.
And if things are not going half decent, chance are higher for such mistakes to happen.
Filing a claim that turns out to be false should be considered a criminal act.
It is a crime but being a company its just a fine at most which is a slap on the wrist for what they usually make.
It depends on intent. If it is legitimately an accident, then it's not criminal. If the person filing the claim knows it is false, then that would be criminal. Not "should be" but "is" a criminal act.
When I worked at Hertz as a manager Trainee we had to report cars as stole after around 30 days. We never did anything stupid like this and we only had a couple cars go rogue a year. What was shady was that we were trained to push unnecessary insurance on people when renting. California required us insure any renter and you are buying insurance on top of that.
Steve years ago my wife rented a car from Hertz in Florida and returned the car in Dallas Texas at a Hertz location. The Florida Hertz reported the car and stolen and my wife was picked up on a Saturday at the house, sent to jail, transported back to Florida where I posted bond. After spending 5000 on a lawyer and multiple trips back to court for another postponement the case was finally dropped. Your reporting is great but there is more to the story than you have report. The Florida detective that investigated the reported stolen rental called the Garland Texas police to investigate. What worked in my wife's favor is the location where the care was found was in the Garland Hertz location with the keys in the car. The car was returned and the keys were dropped in the night drop box. What a crazy experience. My wife was locked up for over 3 weeks for their false reporting.
Sounds like a slam dunk negligence lawsuit, can’t believe you didn’t sue.
@@ceddavis Probably not a slam dunk, and possibly a likely loser. There are lots of reasons that dropping a rental car off when they're closed is a bad idea, and in this case there may not have been any paperwork showing that the car was returned. If it was "found" after it was reported stolen there may have been nothing to prove that she didn't actually steal the car and have somebody return it only after the arrest.
What upsets me about this is that some human signed off of filing these false police claims. But because they work for Hertz they have no responsibility? Similar thing happened during the housing mortgage bubble when they were repoing and evicting people who were not behind on their mortgages.
Because many in the fool public(politicians and judges not excluded) don't have the cognitive ability to avoid anthropomorphizing non-sentient abstractions. Which just builds the whole system on a foundation of fictions and the disconnect results in many problems.
"Those corporations up in their big corporation buildings being all corporationy"
Speaking of filing claims...
Hertz, doing poor enough as a business to presently be filing for bankruptcy, could have been making insurance claims for vehicles reported stolen. (Remember the malfeasance perpetrated by Wells Fargo?)
If I were they (insurers), I would be looking into each and every claim. Hypothetically, the information gleaned from unsealed court documents might be a good starting place (if I hadn't already been investigating).
Or maybe Hertz would be willing to drop the charges if they were "adequately compensated" so to speak, and then let the people sign a NDA.
It may have been poor business practices that pushed Hertz into bankruptcy, it might just be they needed to cover the costs of acquiring the cars they expected to need and due to something, say a pandemic requiring travel restrictions, drastically decreased the number of rentals...
@@shorttimer874 not likely as they have been on the ropes long before the pandemic.
The next question is who in Law Enforcement is writing the Arrest Warrants without due diligence?
LE agencies should be taking their claims with a grain of salt the size of a Buick.
@@michigangeezer3950 -- Perhaps they will now. Any one agency may have only seen a handful of reports from them, and ignored weird cases, chalking them up as paperwork issues and not thinking anything further about it. Now they will hopefully hear about the problems, and future reports from Hertz will be treated the same way as future reports of the big bad wolf by the kid who cried "wolf" when there was none.
Police aren't required to use do diligence. That's the difference between probable cause and without a doubt.
IgnOrantz Uf thu lAw is know excyoose! (unless you have qualified or sovereign immunity)
In these cases, it seems that the warrants are largely properly issued, but based on erroneous/false reports from Hertz.
It is much like if a person calls 911 and makes false statements to try and get a neighbor arrested, a spouse taken away, or a rival gamer shot by a police tactical team.
I wonder if anyone will be wise enough to file a criminal complaint against Hertz?
To file a criminal complaint, you have to swear they broke a law, which means INTENTIONALLY doing something illegal. Mistakenly (typically even being grossly negligent) making a charge is not a criminal act. If the negligence is bad enough, you might be able to sue in civil court. Even that is tough case to prove. But criminal charges are just not going to happen unless a prosecutor thinks he can prove criminal intent.
@@markdoldon8852 I appreciate your feedback on multiple posts. I agree, no Criminal charges are likely. But that does not stop people from consulting their attorney, filing suit and then electing to have a jury hear the case at trial! The court case will then determine if there is any negligence or liability for their corporate behavior/actions. Having a customer wrongfully arrested and denied his or her liberties is a major malfunction/error with resulting implications, even if it is just a result of Hertz's lacking corporate software or standards, versus some employee who made the call. They deserve nothing but bankruptcy at this point in my opinion from what I have read.
I remember their old jingle well...
"Let HERTZ!
Put YOU!
In the prison cell"
OJ running through the airport … for his Hertz ride …
I'm sure there are a whole host of reasons why none of this is being treated as filing a false police report, which would be criminal instead of civil. (Class A Misdemeanor here in TN.) But I haven't a clue what those reasons would be. Anybody care to explain it to the non-lawyer in the audience?
thats easy. the criminal justice system is ran by criminals and they getting a piece of the action. they profit off false accusations
A person goes to jail. A corporation gets a slap on the wrist.
The reason is simple: intent. A mistaken charge is not a false charge in a criminal sense.
@@markdoldon8852 ^^ this ^^ Why is that hard for people to figure out? The system isn't perfect, but how fucked up would it be if it was dangerous to file a police report because you could go to jail for being wrong about something?
@@markdoldon8852 I get what you're saying, mens rea, but isn't there something about a pattern or practice? From the sounds of things, Hertz may have had a general policy of sending in these reports, and that's not a simple mistake. Obviously, that information will have to wait on what comes out of the bankruptcy court, so I know I'm being speculative here.
EDIT to add: Is your point that it's very hard to show intent in these sorts of cases? Hard enough that it's just not worth trying to make the case except in the most egregious situations?
Hey Steve, love your videos! I worked 2 years in a small, locally owned rental department that was part of a new car dealership.
I’m willing to bet that the realtor had his identity stolen by someone that rented and stole from Hertz in Georgia.
We had it happen only once in my time, and the only reason it was caught is because the identity thief stole the identity of a friend of my manager. My manager stalled while I phoned the police from another room, but the guy got cold feet while waiting for us to verify his insurance, and left. What a close call that was
The management need to be held responsible and charged where applicable. Let them spend time in jail for their "cockup"!
Hmm.. makes me wonder if most of the people even know that they have a warrant for their arrest.
I would like to know what that extensive efforts were to find the person who Hertz is claiming stole their car???
I wonder if they are self insured for the cars or if they get reimbursed for "theft" vehicles even if they are recovered.
might be claiming loss of business income from the cars and getting reimbursed for the "loss" on top of the rental charges they collected...
Might have qualified them for "lost revenue" in their insurance policy, due to no acces to the vehicle for rental.
That'd give them an incentive to report the vehicle stolen.
Most rental companies are self-insured. However, damages to a rental car, including theft, can be billed against the renter's insurance policy. I had a few of these fake theft claims come across my desk, and the moment I asked any questions the subrogation demand was immediately withdrawn.
Insurance companies earn a profit because, on average, insurance policies cost more than you'll get. If you own a few cars the risk makes buying insurance important. If you own a few hundred thousand cars buying insurance becomes stupid.
What would happen to a human being who filed a false accusation of car theft? I think that is more than just a civil lawsuit.
That's the whole idea. At its core, a corporation is nothing more than a liability shield. If you or I kill someone, we go to jail. If a corporation kills someone, they pay a fine. Unless they're bankrupt, I guess.
Your missing a BIG part of this story. Many of these cars had reports of theft made. Then they where returned to hertz and rented or sold to other customers who where then arrested because hertz failed to notify police the car had been recovered. This is straight up negligence.
As a victim of this from another company. It is so they can charge thousands of dollars or go to prison. In South Carolina if you're late by minutes you are guilty of grand larceny. It makes them millions.
That is simply not true. The only fee that can be charge is the daily or weekly rate on the contract. Yes you are into the next day or week if it is not returned at the exact time you rented it, but the rate itself can not change and any overage is based on the contracted amount.
@@hechticgaming7193 you’re missing the point. The company files criminal charges against you for “theft”. And that’s gonna be separate from any charges from being late.
@@stephenrich3029 no I'm not. In every State I've worked in the industry you can't charge for theft to any card. If its indeed stolen you can continue to charge the contract rate until you get the car back, either by repo or the cops impounding it. After that all other charges have to be recouped in court.
Passionately performed video segment.
Thank you Steve.
My pastor friend bought a new truck from Hertz in the US, it had a Canadian sticker on it but my friend didn't realize it and Hertz didn't disclose it. Hertz charged him the full Canadian price for the truck even though he paid un US currency which added 20% to the actual cost of the truck. He realized the scam when he got home and took the truck back (In my state you have 3 days back out of the sale). Hertz refused to take the truck back until the pastor went to the police so Hertz decided to take the truck back.
LoL...police for a civil matter? They have no power or authority, but sure.
It's criminal fraud
@@inkedbuddhist5220 Ever heard of fraud? I'm pretty sure it's a crime.
Was only a matter of time before they were called out on this scam.
Good to hear they filed for bankruptcy but it's just a move to not have to pay back those they scammed.
Hertz deputized local, state, and federal law enforcement as collections agencies. Hertz shouldn't be allowed to hide in bankruptcy from the coming class action lawsuits.
As someone that worked in the rental car industry for both small and large companies I can tell you that the industry standard is to call all day overs and see what the issue is (and this is if they didn't drop a car at a mechanic or dealership, as that is who you call then) and to automatically charge the card on file for a week more no matter if it was daily or weekly rental. As long as the card goes through you don't stress. If it doesn't go through then you call for 3 days, if no response at end of 3 days then you start repo processes internally. I can count the times that happened on 1 and a half hands in the 4 years that I spent in the industry.
Will the records include enough data for someone to track down everyone accused? If the turnip wasn't already running dry, this seems like a goldmine for some lawyer.
Yeah, but it's probably a goldmine with almost no gold still in it.
Is "lost rental income from a stolen vehicle" something they can claim from their insurer?
I’d guess it’s more likely to be claiming tax losses than insurance because an insurer would increase premiums to balance it out.
This is something that gets claimed, yes. It's loss of income, but most companies just pay it out as loss of use. It's usually paid based off of what it would cost to rent that car to somebody.
they are self insured
@@ghostwriter720 something like this would be billed against the renter's insurance, or the renter directly.
@@criticalevent -- If it was rented and not returned, there may have been insurance purchased at the time of the rental.
I’ve worked for a Hertz competitor in the past and have been a vendor providing doing vehicle maintenance and service. I know with the company I worked for some of our thefts were from unauthorized employees using the cars for personal use sometimes up to a week or more having taken the car from an unsecured storage lot or even out the front gate with the guise of moving the vehicle to an authorized location but not doing so and keeping the car for personal use. I know of one case where two employees (both related) doing a side hustle and renting out company cars themselves they were eventually caught. As a vendor I know they do long term and short term rentals for Lyft drivers I can see how one of them say misses a couple payments but continues using the car for Lyft also some individual branches are poorly managed and they sometimes loose track of a vehicle either by forgetting it at a shop or even parking them in auxiliary lots and forgetting about them. I’ve had more than one branch we dealt with call looking for one of their cars sometimes we had it other times we didn’t.
Steve: The problem is exponentially worse than anyone imagines. This is what I believe needs to happen. A class action with Hertz being required to advertise for injured parties. I have never rented from Hertz though I witnessed this 1st hand. Twenty years ago I had an incident where I was detained over night. I ended up paying a 10 dollar fine. While there I met a guy that travels the USA making portfolios for comedians to help them attain work, photos of them performing, their name on the marquee etc. Well some one T boned his car, not his fault, his car was not drive able. He had to drive to his next job and ultimately home so he rented a car. He paid whatever and expected the at fault insurance to settle with hertz and him before he signed off on the accident claim. He did not steal the car. Hertz would not wait for the balance of their money and unbeknownst to him reported him as a car thieve. He told me he was not worried and that once he saw the Judge he expected to be set free because he had all the paper work on renting the car. The guy was an honest generous hard working victim of Hertz. Hertz hurts. I remember not being able to call out on the phone system because it was not compatible with who I was calling. This guy insisted I use his 3 way billing system he had set up for being on the road. Probably saved my job and dramatically improved my case outcome.
There are plenty of other car rental outfits out there; why would anybody mess with these bandits?
Imagine some LE agency doing a sting by renting a car and parking it at the police station, and waiting for the false report.
Bust that caller.
There's only a few, not lots.
@@DrBaronMunchausen Budget is much better.
There are maybe about 6 national brands. So if you are travelling you have limited options. If you are flying you generally are renting at the airport which can be very limited.
Just found your channel...love it.
As for your question why Hertz was doing this? Pressure on Managers to control their inventory. Any outstanding contracts were pushed over to recovery "teams".
Then there is a failure of their computer systems, ie not enough actual servers. That would be a "capital improvement" that they refused to spend.
Perhaps this is Hertz's belated revenge on their customers for all those GT350 Mustangs that were "driven hard" at the weekend?
Even more worrying is those that were wrongly accused and have been unable to provide the proof that it is a mistake.
Steve, your suspicion is correct, and it's not just Hertz. Many years ago I was asked to fly 2400 miles to PA to pick up a new corporate airplane. However, due to weather the airline was unable to get into PA and dropped me off in NJ. I rented a car from a major rental firm intending to drive the last 200 miles. Crossing the Pocono's the highway was closed by the state patrol because of a major snow storm; causing me to spend 2 days in an old motel along with many other travelers. Most cars then didn't have 4 wheel drive and the state mounties said only those with 4 wheel drive vehicles were allowed to leave, luckily I was able to hitch a ride. I called the rental firm and notified them that I had to leave the car at the motel, giving them all the information as to who had the keys, why, etc. . The rental attendant on the telephone said he was copying the info and then gave me his name. The motel manager now had the keys to about 20 cars in his parking lot. I heard nothing more from the rental company. Three months later I get a call from the PA state police. The officer informed me that I had stolen the car and there was a 'warrant for my arrest'. He asked where the car was located. I explained all giving him the details including the employee name. The officer called back two weeks later. The car was still at the motel. The motel manager himself had called the company to report the car with no action on their part. The car rental employee had quit months before, and maybe forgot. It was just one of those things the officer said, case closed and "Have a great day". I never received any communication from the car rental company-not even a final bill.
It must have been "corporate policy," written or not. to report cars stolen as they did, but why?
There's a period in time where this first started circulating with insurance adjusters, and what we were learning was it was a "system malfunction" there's no ETA on fix.
I can't imagine e having to prove my location 10+ months ago like the guy who was arrested. To hell with hertz.
And do it from jail. You better have a lawyer (and money) in that case. Otherwise you sit in jail for 12-24 months waiting for trial with no way to gather evidence in your defense.
I love your storytelling steve! Du är väldigt duktig!Du bist wirklich gut darin!
Ты действительно хорош в этом! Keep up the good work !
Wonder if insurance is involved making claims of se sort
Identity theft thing was my first thought but my second thought was that it's probably rare for identity theft to be an isolated incident. If there were ID theft, the people being arrested would probably have had a myriad of other incidents of purchases of goods and services in their name.
Steve I came across a 2017 article you wrote for R&T on the Renault Alliance. Very good. I guess you now know I am a car nut if articles like this come up in my feed.
Years ago, a car rental company contacted me saying they wanted their car back. I told them I didn't rent a car nor was I ever close to their location. I asked them if there policy includes a random search on the internet for people with the same name and harass them. I told them to use whatever information they collected at the time of the rental. He hung up. For all I know, there is an arrest warrant for me in Iowa. Sounds similar to this story.
Hertz is such a garbage company. I can't believe they're still in business.
Your answer is in the video.
LEO's now should just tell Hertz "GFY, stop crying wolf" every time they call them with a stolen vehicle report
Benjamin is behind the red radio station decal above Steve's right shoulder
It would be interesting to compare auto theft rate from Hertz to the rest of the rental care industry.
Also, some of the blame should be going to the law enforcement agencies. It seems like they are just taking the Hertz complaint, no doing any real investigation, and putting warrants out.
the person that called needs to be charged I was just following orders ???
Georgia seems to be a unique state when it comes to proving your identity. I have been arrested in Georgia with an arrest warrant where the only thing on it that was "correct" was my name. Different race, different birthday, different birth year / different age, different driver's license number, different social security number. The officer still arrested me and took me to jail for the weekend. The officer's opinion was we will let the judge sort it out Monday. The judge said I was lucky he was in a good mood, dismissed the case and gave me a warning that he didn't want to see me in his court again.
(Edited for typos because voice to text doesn't like me)
You should have made a bunch of money off that
@@deusvult6920 That's an even longer story involving how Active duty military members were 2nd class citizens in the city of Columbus GA in the late 90s
Thank you for that comment, it's good to know what states to stay out of and not take my money to. Seems like almost every state has some sort of nonsense going on, this one's not much better in some ways.
This once happened to me by Enterprise because I was ONE HOUR LATE. We had an emergency and even called to inform them of the situation. But, a bully I went to school with ended up working at that particular location! I snapped like a light stick! Yes, it was resolved without charges. Also, I ran that little shit out of the company!
Gee, can't imagine why they're bankrupt. Shame that could happen to such a lovely company.
I'm one of the people you are talking about. I live in Oregon and worked in Las Vegas for about 2 years. I spent 10's of thousands of dollars with Hertz. I ALWAYS paid my bill. If they needed a car and I had time left on my contract, they would list it stolen so the COPS would pull me over......
They put something on my "permanent" record.
I haven't been able to rent a car, from ANY rental company, in over 10 years.
I just rented a car with Hertz and now understand how this could happen. Total incompetence! and you can bet I'm saving my record showing I returned the car.
Not only do they get your credit card number but they take a copy of your license.
Judge says: these records must be unsealed.
Hertz responds: oh that hurts!
lololol, I couldn't help myself.
I was in a traffic accident and my insurance company paid for rental car while my truck was being fixed. Enterprise Rental called me and said I need to bring the car back in before a certain date. I told them to call my insurance company they are paying for it. A day or two later Enterprise called me and said I could keep the car until my truck was fixed. Must be they promised someone else the car I had but gave it to me? They didn't say I stole it but still a big pain in the butt and my insurance dealt with it.
Hundo, unfolded, behind the red ringed WRIF sticker, on the left side of the top of the main cabinet. 252.
it sounds to me like Hertz were trying to comit some sort of fraud....
I used to work at uhaul and we would get an influx of reservations near the end of the month. We would get people coming in to rent a truck with no reservation and if their rental request overlapped with a reservation we would discuss possible options like a different size truck (usually a smaller truck) or a different time slot. If I didn't trust the person to come back on time, I would deny them the rental. Occasionally, we would get customers that were denied a rental at a different branch and they would lie just to get a truck knowing that they would not bring it back before the next reservation. We would charge the customer a huge late fee. Perhaps Hertz would report vehicles stolen to get their vehicle back to accommodate reservations? Seems like a bad practice if they did.
They just have poor checks & balances prior to filing reports. Most will be situations where the car is returned/recovered and re-rented prior to verifying that the car is off the hot sheets. The one guy mentioned was either a victim of identity theft or a rental agent attaching the wrong driver profile to the rental in question. Either of which should have been fleshed out by upper management prior to reporting the vehicle stolen. At Enterprise we had to wait 30 days before making a report. This was to exhaust all internal recovery efforts and to ensure that we didn't wrongly report a vehicle or customer to the authorities.
In my experience with Hertz, a major profit driver is the management of receipt and return of the rental fleet inventory. Most of the fleet is leased! The lease includes the cost, the date and place of receipt and the date and place of return. The cost is a percentage of invoice per month in the fleet; this was 1% in 1990 when I was there. Hertz is predicting how many units it needs in each place and for how long. They negotiate with the manufactures which vehicles will be delivered and where and the return date and conditions. Conditions include the physical condition and the mileage. The vehicles that are damaged, driven too much or not returned on their returned date become the property of Hertz. The actual deprecation rate for new cars is much higher than the lease cost, so each vehicle not accepted for return is an additional loss for Hertz. Each local office is responsible to return as many vehicles as possible. So if a vehicle is approaching it's mileage limit, they will stop renting it. If a vehicle is due to be returned in the next few days, stop renting it. A lot of these things are not really in their control, when a customer rents for the weekend and the car's return date is the following Tuesday, they would rent it out, but if the customer calls and extends the rental the local manager is screwed! They will miss the return date. Managers do not want to be the ones that miss the buy back, so they report the rental stolen to make their numbers look better. The losses caused by missing the buy back are charged to insurance, making the P&L look much better.
You might remember in the 80s when you could rent a Lincoln for $19.95 a day, that was because Ford could not sell the big cars and they agreed to put them in the rental fleet and only charge the Tempo cost, which was less than 1/2 the Lincoln. As long as the Lincolns were returned Hertz made out fine, but if they missed a buy back date, the real depreciation was more than $5,000 over the amount in the lease.
When Hertz has to take cars to the auction, the rentals don't do well, especially if they are all the same color.
I had a rental car from Hertz die on the Major Degan Expressway in NY City. It got towed by a Hertz contractor to a repair place in the Bronx. It was an adventure to get to my home in Kingston, NY(90 miles north). But, the real adventure was getting to someone inside the Hertz organization to close out my contract. My memory was that it was a two day process with calling a phone number and then being redirected multiple times.
A Towman here. I'm the primary tow service for a large vehicle rental company, not Hertz.
As a portion of my serving them, I deal with picking up vehicles that have been "converted". That is the term used for vehicles that recently were "in the wind", location unknown.
The company is very hesitant to put a vehicle on the "Hot Sheet" as stolen as there may be problems down the line having that VIN attached to the list.
I probably handle 50 "converted" vehicles a year for them.
In NC it got so bad with late rentals or actual theft, the Legislation made a law called “failure to return rental property”. Not sure if the rental company gets compensation which may be why this may be happening.
I use to watch videos from this group that pulled cars out of lakes/rivers. It was amazing how many turned out to be supposedly stolen Hertz cars in the Tennessee rivers. Makes you wonder now if there is more to the story? Too bad Paul Harvey isn't still around to tell us.
3500 per year is 10 everyday!!!! I am not in this field of car rentals but it does seem high to me.
until you see the # of cars companies like that own its a very tiny %. According to 2020 they own 424000 cars.
@@arbiter1 it doesn't matter, everyday 10 people are NOT stealing their cars.
I reserved a car from Hertz when I was planning on going to Florida but cancelled the rental a couple of weeks prior to the trip. Imagine my surprise when I got Florida toll booth bills in the mail. I found out that they (Hertz) had rented a car to someone yet issued the contract in my name and billed me for the rental. Upon contacting Hertz, they did the right thing and reversed the charges and contacted whoever runs the toll system to get those charges reversed as well. It doesn't sound like they do that anymore.
Don't those cars have a separate GPS system on top of the manufacturer one? How hard would it be to do that in case they dismantle the factory system ? Just a thought when they are dealing with property that's constantly moving?
My son worked for Enterprise and it wasn’t uncommon for people to rent a car and not return it a few days or up to a month late. They just kept dinging the card and as long as the card accepted it, they let it go.
Here’s another thought though. The people who don’t return their rental really mess up the scheduling. Most of the cars have to be rented to turn a profit, so they don’t have a lot of extra vehicles sitting on the lot. When you have 8 min vans that were reserved for spring break and 4 of them aren’t brought back in time, customers get very upset. They rented the van far and advance and now they don’t have their vacation vehicle.
Seems like some people can’t rent the van when they want it, so they rent it a few days early when it’s available and then bring it back till maybe a week late.
A coworker got a HUGE bill from Hertz because her rental car had bullet holes in it (days after she turned it in). She pointed out that no one mentioned this when she turned it in. Since there were bullets involved, the police got involved and it turns out an employee had leant it to a friend who was involved in drug dealing and got caught up in a firefight.
I want to know how many situations like that happen at other rental agencies. Is that the norm or is the number much higher with Hertz.
Awesome Shirt! I just moved to the badlands SoDak!
I wonder if the company gets an insurance payment every time they claimed a stolen vehicle.
The very definition of Irony. Watching Steve's video about Hertz only to have a Hertz advertisement come up at the end of it!
I will say that in my experience, rental shops don't always look at ID, but I tend to use Avis since I've never really had a problem with them. I think my credit card and my "avis preferred" are tied together in their system, and it allows them to streamline the paperwork.
Isn't it sad that a company can report a car stolen based solely on a rental contract. But the named person is assumed guilty, arrested and has to prove his innocence to be released. Why is this not a civil matter since it is a contracts case?
Because taking the car with no intent to return it is a criminal act, even if it is first rented. (I believe Steve has talked about "conversion" before.)
As The Scooter Guy said, if you have a contract to rent a car for seven days you have to return it by the end of the seventh day. If it's then reported stolen the police have to act...and if they find you in possession of the car well, oops on you.
Moral of the story is don't assume you can change a contract without the consent of the other party.
@@TheRealScooterGuy Thank you for your valid comment. What is sad is if this was a contract between two individuals, the police would likely return the property and call it a "he said/she said" civil matter. The intent has been assumed as a matter of fact. Eluding, concealment or deception can show intent of theft but on its face the issue begins and ends with the contract. Depending on your state and what is delineated in the contract, a contract can be changed, amended or canceled by whatever means is allowed by the contract or state law. Many contracts allow for the changing of a contract in writing, by phone or by some digital means as long as there is acknowledgement by both parties. If party A says the car is stolen and party B says it is not by contract or by change in the contract then property is returned once proof of ownership is shown and the terms of the contract is to be handled as a civil matter. Many of accused by Hertz said they had extended their rental and their card charges reflected that but that did not save them from being charged and jailed. More Orwellian tea anyone?
Agree with other comments that if the Hertz "System" is that bad and people go to jail they should as an offset start with the CEO and have those executives spend the same amount of time in jail. It might encourage Hertz to improve their "System." As SL points out there are 3,000 people a year who don't know they are criminals until they try to cross a border into Canada or Mexico or are otherwise stopped by the police on a routine traffic stop. The 230 or so complaints are just those who found out they had been targeted by Hertz.
Fortunately this has never happened to me but I have had other similar issues on a more minor scale such as here in Las Vegas at McCarran Airport (aka Reid Airport) wherein parked for a few days while out of town and came back and paid on my way out. A couple of weeks later did the same thing and they wanted to charge me from the date of my original visit. I fortunately had gotten the receipt from the first time and still had this in my glove box. Otherwise I was looking at a $250 bill for parking at the long-term lot.
When Steve described showing his driver's license to the rental clerk, I imagined a picture so old it showed him with a moustache and ponytail ;)
It’s not just that Hertz reported people for stealing cars, it’s that Hertz _falsely_ reported people for stealing cars.
The reason why is that Hertz has a faulty system for keeping track of their cars and rather than upgrade theirs system for tracking their own cars, Hertz reports the cars as stolen.
Vinwiki has videos of this and why they do what they do, also its not stealing if you hand the car to them something about theft by conversion or somthing.
Omgoodness… I hope I don’t end up being accused in Ga. I used to live in Atlanta and I had to rent automobiles every week due to company travel. I never rented from Hertz… but I did rent from just about every other company… always returned the rental though.
Somehow, someway, for some reason, there is a monetary gain happening. It may be as simple as deferred taxes owed due to reporting the loss ,even if found later…
I smell a Fargo level scam going on.
How about criminal charges for the individuals who are responsible for the false police reports?
When i worked at walmart we needed the drivers license number in order to sell a *fishing liscence* so its probably pretty easy to check
Didn't they just announce a 100million Tesla deal? How if they filed bankruptcy?
What I think people should get is those who caused the false car theft reports to go to jail for a long time. If for no other reasons, at least to set an example. Also, this data should be requested from every single car renting company in the country, and similar actions should be taken for the intentionally-erroneous theft reports filed by those companies and their employees.
230 is a fairly high number for a rental company and not so rare if there are that many. I can see why CBS is interested and why the judge allowed it.
I had Hertz send me a letter claiming that I hadn't returned a car I rented a year previously. Fortunately, I still had the printed receipt when I returned the car. The reason I kept the receipt was that the whole rental experience was such an ordeal ( lost reservation, wrong car, etc.) I decided to retain the drop-off receipt. I never rented from those clowns again.
I have rented cars through Hertz hundreds of times over my career, and I was TERRIBLE at contacting Hertz when I went beyond the return date which was very often. A couple of days and I'd hear nothing then I would usually receive a call and a text to contact them at which point I'd call and extend the rental. This was always handled without incident. Not once were the police called. I don't know if I'm lucky or that my status as a frequent customer (Presidents circle) made a difference. In any event, I found it odd that they weren't more aggressive.
Different employees, or different time-frame, or as you suggested, your status as a frequent customer may have all had an effect on how you were treated.
I rented a cheap econobox from Budget. They didn't have one when I went to pick it up so they gave me a new Toyota 4Runner for the same price. NICE!
The windshield was hit by a rock (small crack) they didn't charge me.
Budget has been good every time I've used them.
“Pure incompetence”. Interesting concept.
Hertz said the car had been stolen, why should they be allowed to keep that car after the report is found to be false?
They broke the law by filing a (provably) false claim, why do they get to keep the fruits of their malfeasance?
How many times has the same car been 'stolen'?
It would be a fun read, to see which dealerships had the most infractions, what type of vehicle was reported most often, the ethnic background of people being reported as car thieves.
The little things make for the best reading...
I heard 'a bankrupcy court in Dazzleware' :D
Give it 6 months and Netflix will do a documentary on this ... "The Big Hertz"
Steve, I used to be a Station Manager with Hertz at the Atlanta Airport. You have no idea how screwed up they really are, especially given who the regional manager was at the time. Complete mismanagement and clueslessness.
@Sean Embry If you paid for all of their insurance, any accident should have been covered. If a car breaks down, Hertz is supposed to provide a replacement within 2 hours (company standard but may vary due to volume). In no way should you have been made to pay for the towing, you should have been reimbursed at the very least and given a free rental. But, this is the same tired old excuse big companies use, "oh, it was the franchise." BS!!!! If Hertz name is on anything then they're responsible. Steve can tell you more about "respondeat superior" and how that works.
@Sean Embry They were mismanaged. When I worked for them they were extremely profitable so I don't know if they were bought by private equity group or a hedge fund but they're really gone downhill but that could be because they only cared about their corporate clients like IBM. Once IBM began to fade so did Hertz profits. I do know that if you booked through a travel agent you got a better rate; Hertz allowed them to undercut everything else. But, rental rates varied based on time of day, flight information, which day of the week it was and too many other variables to get into. It was shady to say the least.
So, why hasn’t anyone from Hertz arrested for filing false criminal complaint?
I bet a lot of them were just a case of laziness on the part of the agent. They call a couple times and give up and report the vehicle stolen. FWIW my phone may lay around in the house for hours and not get answered.
Would it have anything to do with them getting quick cash payouts from insurance after the cars have been filed as stolen?
Those number say through out the country they report almost 10cars a day stolen. Last time I rented a car I also had to buy their insurance or provide proof that my insurance would