After hundreds of customers have been falsely arrested of stealing its rental vehicles in recent months, Hertz Global Holdings, Incorporated announced that an aggregate amount of approximately $168 million will be paid towards the settlement of 364 pending claims which are related to vehicle theft reporting.
Hertz To Pay $168 Million For Customers Falsely Arrested
Greater than 95 percent of the disputes are expected to be resolved by the end of the year. Hertz Global Holdings, Incorporated believes that a meaningful portion of the settlement amount will be recovered from its insurance carriers; and the company does not expect the resolution of these pending claims which are related to vehicle theft reporting to have a material impact on its capital allocation plans for the balance of 2022 and 2023.
“As I have said since joining Hertz earlier this year, my intention is to lead a company that puts the customer first. In resolving these claims, we are holding ourselves to that objective,” Stephen Scherr — who is the current chief executive officer of Hertz — said, according to this official statement which was released from the company earlier today, Monday, December 5, 2022. “While we will not always be perfect, the professionals at Hertz will continue to work every day to provide best-in-class service to the tens of millions of people we serve each year. Moving forward, it is our intention to reshape the future of our company through electrification, shared mobility and a great digital-first customer experience.”
Final Boarding Call
At least I can say that I was never arrested as a result of renting a vehicle from Hertz.
I am not exactly sure where the process fell apart to the point that hundreds of customers have been falsely arrested for stealing rental vehicles; but at least Hertz is paying a substantial amount of money to have those claims resolved. Divide $168 million by 364 to get slightly greater than $461,538.61 per pending claim.
Customers should get the benefit of the doubt and not be unexpectedly confronted by law enforcement officers over a false claim that apparently was not even verified by the company that filed the claim. If a private citizen caused someone to be arrested under false pretenses, that person would likely suffer the consequences to the fullest extent of the law.
This should have never happened; and it should never happen again — but will greater than $168 million be enough of a deterrent to prevent a rental car company from falsely accusing its customers for theft of its motor vehicles?
All photographs ©2022 by Brian Cohen.
