More people have come forward to claim that it was accused, arrested or even jailed after Hertz reported cars they had legitimately rented they were stolen.
Carrie Gibbs was arrested at a gas station in California in 2019 after Hertz told police she had stolen the truck.
The truck was rented to Hertz by an insurance company after an accident, but the video obtained exclusively by CBS News shows that the police stopped it. She was taken to jail and charged with car theft.
The case was later dismissed, but Gibbs said in court documents that he lost his real estate license for a year.
“I’ve been a real estate agent for 18 years. So this is the most frustrating thing ever,” Gibbs told CBS News Consumer Research Correspondent Anna Werner.
A NASA employee claims he was also attacked after Hertz reported that his vehicle had been stolen. In court records, he said he was driving a rented Hertz SUV when Florida police officers detained him at gunpoint after Hertz filed a theft report two days earlier, alleging that the vehicle NASA had rent was stolen. CBS News obtained a video of the arrest.
He was later released free of charge and has also filed a complaint against the rental company.
Another plaintiff, Florida banker Manuel Garcia, said he saw his Hertz rental car being towed while in a restaurant after it was also reported that it was stolen, although he said it had been stolen. renting the car for months.
“Never in my life would I have imagined that I would be in a situation like this,” Garcia said.
Carmen Bosko rented a car at a Florida Hertz location in January and said she returned it in April. But in August, she was arrested by Georgian agents for car theft. Bosko spent 40 days in prison and was separated from her three children, including her two-month-old baby.
“I had to explain to my kids why I was away for 40 days. And I wasted time with my little one who will never come back,” he said.
Steven Robinson told CBS News that he didn’t even rent a car at Hertz. But in June, police arrested him for car theft. He spent two days in jail and is now on trial for a felony.
“I mean, that was the worst experience of my life. And I can’t believe Hertz and that was a good slogan I heard, but Hertz hurts people a lot. His negligent practices are like, it’s terrible.” , said Robinson.
Another person, Rejeana Meado, said she rented a Hertz car for three days in May to attend a wedding in Houston with her husband. He says he got it back in time.
But last week, Hertz sent her this email saying that they have now reported the car theft, which means she could face charges and now lives in fear of being arrested.
“I have a husband. I have children. It’s terrible. I’m sorry … My doorbell rings and I’m afraid it’s the cops who come looking for me,” Meado said.
Hertz declined to comment on the story, but has previously said that the “vast majority” of cases “involve tenants who were many weeks or even months late in returning vehicles and stopped contacting (Hertz). well beyond the scheduled due date “.
There are now 191 claims filed in federal bankruptcy court on behalf of people who say they were falsely arrested.
As CBS News reported earlier, the Delaware Bankruptcy Court judge is considering how many of these claims can go forward. Lawyer Francis Alexander Malofiy said that since the CBS News report was first aired, more people have been filing.
“People think they are an isolated incident and they don’t realize that this is a systemic problem that is happening all over the country,” Malofiy said.
Hertz denies it, saying that “situations in which vehicles are reported to the authorities are very rare.”
Fritz Jekel filed a similar case in 2019 and at the time asked Hertz if there were other claims for false arrests and similar claims. He said he recovered a database, which contains more than 300 claims filed, from 2008-2016.
CBS News was unable to view the database because Hertz marked it as confidential. Hertz did not answer our questions about this database.
In a previous statement, Hertz said it “is deeply concerned about our customers and successfully offers rental vehicles for tens of millions of passengers each year.”
Hertz Statement: (November 2, 2021)
Hertz is deeply concerned about our customers and we successfully offer rental vehicles for tens of millions of passengers each year. Unfortunately, in the legal issues being discussed, lawyers have a history of making baseless claims that blatantly falsify the facts. The vast majority of these cases refer to tenants who were many weeks or even months late in returning their vehicles and who stopped contacting us far beyond the expected due date. Situations in which vehicles are reported to the authorities are very rare and only occur after exhaustive attempts to reach the customer.
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