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Hertz to pay $168M to customers arrested due to Hertz’s false police reports

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Re: Hertz to pay $168M to customers arrested due to Hertz’s false police reports

#101

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

pitaj wrote: post #36
ethanbond wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't they be compensated directly for the financial damages and then put the perpetrators in prison for all the damages that can't be moneyed-away?

How does imprisoning someone help the victims in any way? People have some really fucked up ideas of justice. Justice should focus first on making victims whole, then on rehabilitating the perpetrators to prevent victimization in the future. Imprisonment serves neither of those goals.

a) don't underestimate the importance of feeling like having received justice

b) deterrence is important, especially in cases like this: if there are consequences for willfully ignoring something that causes severe harm to others, it's less likely to be willfully ignored in the future. If you can expect to only have to make others whole (if caught), it's a lot easier to just not care. And legal compensation rarely actually makes people whole.

Re: Hertz to pay $168M to customers arrested due to Hertz’s false police reports

#102

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

pitaj wrote: post #55
rtepopbe wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends a lot on what kind of crime you're dealing with. This isn't a matter of teaching the executives of Hertz that no, they don't need to commit crimes to survive, and how to access alternative means of survival, and all that. They did this because they were greedy, lazy, and they knew they wouldn't suffer much for it. When you're dealing with white-collar sorts of crimes like this, deterrence is a thing.

Prison is not the right fit. If you want deterrence, make them pay directly towards the victims. Put them on house arrest. Put them on probation. Ban them from holding a managerial or executive role. There are plenty of alternatives that don't involve locking people in cells - and that are probably more effective a deterrent.

I've seen the difference between "requirements that will be expensive to violate" and "requirements that will have the CEO go to jail personally".

Guess which ones get taken a lot more seriously.

Re: Hertz to pay $168M to customers arrested due to Hertz’s false police reports

#103

Post by phpisthebest »

ajross wrote: post #79
stainablesteel wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

intent is one thing, neglect is another

It is for the crime that you're discussing. Filing a false police report is criminal precisely because of intent. Needless to say, if you have a good faith belief that you report to the police[1], you should be able to do so without fear of prosecution if you're wrong! [1] And whether people like it or not, Hertz clearly thought this system worked at the time they reported the "stolen" cars; just like software develo…

The key part of the law is "know or SHOULD HAVE KNOWN"

They can not claim poor record keeping and ignorance as an excuse for filing false reports, they SHOULD HAVE KNOWN, which is part of the intent standard in most jurisdictions

1, 2, even 10 reports ok... they suck. 100's of false reports, that is beyond simple clerical error it would not take much to convince a jury that intent is there. i.e they internally setup the process that lead to false reports being filed likely as a say to cut costs

Re: Hertz to pay $168M to customers arrested due to Hertz’s false police reports

#104

Post by ipaddr »

annexrichmond wrote: post #46
snapcaster wrote: post #2

This is so awful it's hard to even believe. It does feel like there needs to be some threat of a company being completely dissolved in cases like this or Equifax or other problems this big that the organization has shown no interest in stopping

at what point is the punishment worse than the crime, such as if hundreds or thousands of people lose their job?

Amount of people employed should not factor in to decisions like this. Otherwise the government should prevent Amazon from laying off 20,000 if that's all that matters.

Re: Hertz to pay $168M to customers arrested due to Hertz’s false police reports

#105

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

xwolfi wrote: post #39
jakelazaroff wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"A rental car company" didn't do anything. Humans working at a rental car company did. Maybe it was a "bureaucratic error" that fraudulently reported the cars as stolen. That bureaucracy didn't spontaneously emerge from dust. Humans built it. Why should humans not face legal repercussions for the havoc they've wreaked on their victims' lives?

Because the havoc they ve wreaked could have been avoided, if only the police itself, a public service, behaved appropriately. Declaring a car stolen by mistake shouldnt be the end of the world. One day someone with the same name as me committed an offense and I was wrongly given to the police of my country, and it took 5 minutes to clear me and nothing happened.

> I was wrongly given to the police of my country, and it took 5 minutes to clear me and nothing happened.

That's great that worked well for you, but in America, I don't have enough faith in cops for that to work out.

The prevailing attitude is that cops have to be "tough on crime", and if some false positives end up happening and an innocent person goes to jail for a few days until their name gets cleared, that's fine. In the mean time, they'll try to find SOMETHING to charge them with.

Land of the free, indeed.

Re: Hertz to pay $168M to customers arrested due to Hertz’s false police reports

#106

Post by lrem »

CSMastermind wrote: post #57

I travel quite a bit for both business and personal reasons. This means I'm driving a rental car for 100+ days a year. I've tried all the major rental brands and Hertz is a terrible experience even when they're not calling the police on you by mistake. Their systems don't work quite right, there's a bunch of hidden fees, and their customer service is lacking at best. I swear by Enterprise and purchasing the extra ins…

Is that a US thing? I've been using both in Europe and Hertz seemed better, but also more expensive.

Re: Hertz to pay $168M to customers arrested due to Hertz’s false police reports

#107

Post by ajross »

phpisthebest wrote: post #103
ajross wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is for the crime that you're discussing. Filing a false police report is criminal precisely because of intent. Needless to say, if you have a good faith belief that you report to the police[1], you should be able to do so without fear of prosecution if you're wrong! [1] And whether people like it or not, Hertz clearly thought this system worked at the time they reported the "stolen" cars; just like software develo…

The key part of the law is "know or SHOULD HAVE KNOWN" They can not claim poor record keeping and ignorance as an excuse for filing false reports, they SHOULD HAVE KNOWN, which is part of the intent standard in most jurisdictions 1, 2, even 10 reports ok... they suck. 100's of false reports, that is beyond simple clerical error it would not take much to convince a jury that intent is there. i.e they internally setup…

That seems to be assuming facts not in evidence, though. Did Hertz decisionmakers continue operating the system after having been notified it was giving false positives? I tend to agree that sounds like criminal negligence. But nothing seems to be alleging that anywhere.

Flipping it around: would you feel comfortable calling the police to report that criminal negligence? Or would you be worried about getting in trouble for a false report?

The system is tilted towards non-prosecution, and for some very good reasons. No one's going to jail here.

Re: Hertz to pay $168M to customers arrested due to Hertz’s false police reports

#108

Post by ethanbond »

pitaj wrote: post #52
KerrAvon wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we know that jail time for corporate executives does not serve as a deterrent?

Personally, I think if you're the one advocating for locking people in cells, you should be the one proving that it's effective.

Pretty sure your gut reaction against the punishment is good argument that it'd deter someone from doing the action that yields said punishment.

Meanwhile we do the equivalent of charging a $90 penalty for a crime that earned $100.

Re: Hertz to pay $168M to customers arrested due to Hertz’s false police reports

#109

Post by pessimizer »

pitaj wrote: post #52
KerrAvon wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we know that jail time for corporate executives does not serve as a deterrent?

Personally, I think if you're the one advocating for locking people in cells, you should be the one proving that it's effective.

It doesn't have to be "effective", it just has to be more effective than not locking people in cells. If you're advocating for something else, you should be arguing its effectiveness over locking people in cells. "Effectiveness" doesn't mean anything outside of a comparison to other options.

Re: Hertz to pay $168M to customers arrested due to Hertz’s false police reports

#110

Post by pessimizer »

ipaddr wrote: post #91
kitanata wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Retribution is part of criminal Justice. We have no problem “rehabiliting” companies (except that it often fails), and we have no problem using retribution as an excuse to send poor black people to jail for long sentences. Why do we struggle with conceptualizing retribution for handling corporate malfeasance? You have a duty as a company leader to your fellow citizens. If you fail, you should be held accountable. I s…

Retribution isn't part of the system. To deter future crimes is and could be used.

> Retribution isn't part of the system.

On what authority are you making this proclamation?

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