Yet Another Renter Sues Hertz After He And His Teen Daughter Were Held At Gunpoint By Cops Following A Bogus Theft Report

It seems like every couple of weeks there's another report of a Hertz customer being treated like a thief because the car rental company can't be bothered to do even the most minimal of due diligence or follow-up.

At this point, there are more than 100 plaintiffs involved in class action lawsuit claiming Hertz has falsely reported their rented vehicles as stolen or failed to notify law enforcement when they recover a car reported as stolen, allowing new renters to be subjected to the potentially deadly actions of cops who think they're dealing with a car thief.

According to a former employee, the company does almost nothing to recover allegedly stolen vehicles, preferring to let the public foot the bill by outsourcing the job to local law enforcement. Despite statements otherwise by company officials, Hertz appears to be unwilling to terminate prosecutions linked to bogus car theft reports by company employees.

Adding to the narrative suggesting Hertz is so terrible at basic customer service, it shouldn't be allowed to stay in business is this horror story, brought to us by Ryan Hogg at Insider.

A man suing Hertz after he was held at gunpoint 30 minutes after renting his vehicle says the incident has left his daughter in therapy and terrified of police.

Nicholas Wright and his then-13-year-old daughter were stopped by armed officers in October last year, 30 minutes after he had rented a car.

This report raises a lot of questions, none of which are answered by video footage of officers swarming the car with their guns out while under the impression they were dealing with a dangerous car thief.

This wasn't a case where the renter had possession of the car for days or weeks, perhaps resulting in someone at the Thrifty branch (Thrifty was purchased by Hertz in 2012) forgetting a contract had been extended and mistakenly flagging a vehicle as stolen. This was thirty minutes after the rental.

That short window between rental and guns-out swarming points toward yet another failure in Hertz's inventory control policies. If the car was still flagged in the Hertz system as stolen, that would need to be cleared before it could be rented. And that may be what happened. But what didn't happen was anyone from Hertz passing this information along to law enforcement before renting the vehicle to another driver. That is pure negligence, especially considering the potential for injury or death that comes with every traffic stop where the suspected crime is auto theft.

There are more details which make this even more concerning. First, the plaintiff alleges that his initial call to Hertz to clear this up - a call made while he was surrounded by armed officers - was greeted with laughter by the manager at the rental agency.

This, however, is the chilling cherry on Hertz's shit sundae:

Officers at the scene told Wright this happens all the time with Hertz," before he was allowed to go when the manager arrived.

This just sucks. For several reasons. Hertz has enough of a reputation that the cops at the scene have already engaged in supposed auto theft stops of Hertz renters with valid rental agreements in hand. Tragically, it also suggests cops continue to treat Hertz theft reports as valid, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. The boy who cried wolf" policy should have kicked in a long time ago, resulting in Hertz having to provide plenty of documentation and physical evidence of theft, rather than simply treating their reports as accurate representations of the situation.

The burden is on Hertz to clear drivers and cars of theft allegations. Cops are never going to call reporting parties when viewing hot sheets or responding to automatic license plate reader hits. When Hertz refuses to notify law enforcement it has recovered its property, it increases the risk of its customers ending up arrested, assaulted, or dead. That's unacceptable and Hertz's claims that millions of drivers haven't been subjected to bogus theft reports doesn't change a thing. Any rental company is capable of handling this part of the business competently. And, as all evidence shows, every one of Hertz's competitors is better at this than Hertz is. The only conclusion that can be drawn is that Hertz simply doesn't care.