Hertz files thousands of car theft complaints against customers every year. A judge ruled they have to make that data public.

A Delaware bankruptcy court judge has ruled that car rental company Hertz should make public the number of tenants it accuses of stealing their cars. The verdict comes in the wake of a CBS News investigation into customer claims that they were falsely arrested.

As reported by CBS News consumer investigation correspondent Anna Werner on Wednesday, a Colorado man alleges he was arrested after Hertz misreported police that he did not return a car to Georgia, a state that he says he has never visited.

Hertz, that was declared bankrupt in 2020, had filed the data on the allegations of theft under seal. The CBS News legal team filed a formal objection to the attempt to keep this and other statistics secret, which led to the court’s decision Wednesday.

Although not all details have been released yet, the company is already facing 230 bankruptcy court claims by people alleging that they were falsely arrested for stealing rental cars on the basis of in erroneous Hertz reports.

“Of the more than 25 million Hertz rental transactions in the United States each year, 0.014% fall into the rare situation where vehicles are reported to authorities after exhaustive attempts to reach the customer.” Hertz said in a statement to CBS News after the sentencing.

This would mean that the company reported an average of 3,500 customers for car thefts each year. The number of such reports that Hertz admits were erroneous reports has not yet been revealed, but is included in the judge’s unsealed order.

Colorado real estate appraiser Drew Seaser is one of the plaintiffs who shared his experience with Werner. He said that customs officers stopped him at the airport when he was going to Mexico with his family.

“When they checked my passport, they said, Mr. Seaser, are you aware that you have an arrest warrant outside of Georgia? At first, I thought they were kidding,” he said.

Hertz had wanted to arrest him for stealing a rental car in Georgia the previous November, but Seaser said he had never been to Georgia and had never rented a car in Hertz.

“I was terrified. You know, I’ve never been arrested before and I’ve never had any problems. I own my own business,” he told Werner. He spent more than 24 hours in jail before his attorney could prove he was in Colorado the day Hertz said the car was stolen and prosecutors dismissed the charges.

“The vast majority of these cases involve tenants who were many weeks or even months late in returning their vehicles and who stopped contacting us far beyond the scheduled due date. vehicles being reported to authorities are very rare and only happen after exhaustive attempts to reach the customer, “the company said in a statement.

These figures, including how many lawsuits have been filed, are expected to come down soon.

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