Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

viewfromthewing.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 177 posts

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

#141

Post by FateOfNations »

gamblor956 wrote: post #61
jboy55 wrote: post #16

A long time ago I was in a relationship where my SO took my car and refused to give it back. I called the police to report it stolen and they said that since I had lent the car to her in the past, this was a case of someone not abiding by an agreement, and it was a civil matter and I would need to retrieve the car or a PI would. This was California, so other states probably have different laws, but I would have to th…

The police gave you bad information. California law does not have any sort of "prior use" exception to theft laws. Letting someone use a car in the past does not give them cart blanche to borrow it again without permission in the future. You ex stole your car. If they police did not do anything, the proper response would be to take your complaint of inaction to Internal Affairs or your local elected representative. A…

California even has a special "taken without consent" (i.e. joyriding) law for cars where you don't even have to prove the "permanently deprive" part that proving theft normally entails.

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

#142

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

LanceH wrote: post #67
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…

The last 3 years I've had occasion to use Budget on an "I need a rental now" basis. I've had a good experience because they just don't seem to care. That is, the employees working there just check in/out, sign the paperwork, that's it. I haven't had to spend a lot of time turning down questionable options and upgrades. There haven't been turn-in inspections where they claim that tiny scratch on the car with 160k mile…

FWIW I use Avis (same company, higher price tier) and also have zero of those kind of issues.

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

#143

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

jimmydddd wrote: post #125
throw8383833jj wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once chose hertz because it was cheapest and I regretted it! They didn't specify how much the baby seat was going to be and it end up being like 20$ extra! they should have mentioned how much the baby seat costs on the checkout page. and then when i complained about it, they just wanted to blame the 3rd party checkout processor. Hertz, never again! In life, i've learned, that if an optional extra price isn't listed…

re: "because it was the cheapest" I use Budget and I haven't had any problems. However, I always thought Hertz and Avis were the expensive premium rental places. So I learned something today.

Avis is at least. They are the same company that owns Budget, but on the more premium price tier.

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

#145

Post by fallingknife »

jmyeet wrote: post #44
fallingknife wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you really using China as an example of how this is handled well? From your own source: >Ahead of this, Ma addressed an assembly of high-profile figures with a controversial speech that criticised the Chinese financial system. He was not seen in public again until late January. In the interim, there were rumours that he might have been placed under house arrest or otherwise detained. Some even questioned if he wa…

The lesson I would like people to take from China is that government is the only thing that can rein in corporate power. This is one reason (of many) why I either laugh or just roll my eyes at libertarians. Obviously there are aspects of China you don't want to emulate (eg the ethnic cleansing).

What does anything in this thread have to do with "corporate power?" It's the cops who put these people in jail and you have exactly the same power as Hertz to file false police reports.

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

#146

Post by ethanbond »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #128
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?

> put the perpetrators in prison for all the damages that can't be moneyed-away? Unless it was done wilfully, this just perpetuates the American fetish for imprisonment. They should be fired. They should be fined. And they should be deeply investigated, to confirm there wasn’t intent.

Throwing people in jail for smoking weed in their home is the fetish for imprisonment.

Throwing people in jail for literally throwing innocent people in jail, destroying their careers, and stripping them of their basic human rights is far from fetishizing it.

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

#147

Post by cypress66 »

jimmydddd wrote: post #126
nickvanw wrote: post #6

These stories are awful - this wasn't just an administrative headache for people, they served real time and has real consequences. Filing a false police report is a crime, it would be nice to see that enforced against the company in one way or another.

Agreed. The company is like yeah, we make some minor adminstrative mistakes. But the story says a woman spent 30 days in jail? Picture yourself in her shoes.

If somebody spent 30 days in jail because of a false report by Hertz, then it's not just hertz in the wrong. Arguably it's an even bigger failure by the judicial system.

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

#148

Post by Overtonwindow »

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…

I concur. I travel every month and Hertz was my GoTo for twenty years. The customer service is abysmal. Hertz..hurts.

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

#149

Post by CSMastermind »

geoelectric wrote: post #136
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…

Interestingly, I had Enterprise squarely in my head as the budget option compared to Hertz, who I always had down as the "pricey but better service" option (at least if you exercised the Gold program, etc.) Not sure if I'm strictly a victim of effective marketing, or if they flipped places in the last however many years, or what, but it's interesting to see your post and the replies that imply I've got it backwards.

If you formed that opinion years ago it might have been more true. In the 00s Hertz was indeed a top tier, best in class, rental company.

They were sold the private equity then taken public in 2006 and the quality of the company declined dramatically over the 2010s.

They changed their model to focus on partnership programs through airlines, hotels, and credit cards while offering low teaser rates for their rentals and upselling addons afterwards.

Performance metrics for their staff shifted from customer satisfaction to sales targets.

They canceled their R&D efforts (like rental kiosks) and refocused that money on marketing campaigns.

Their marketshare and profits declined and as a result activist investor Carl Icahn put pressure on the company to cut costs in 2016, forcing in a new CEO. Those cuts ultimately led to incidents like the one in the original article about falsely reporting the vehicles stolen but also to the company's bankruptcy filing in 2019.

It's been quite the fall from grace for the company.

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

#150

Post by mtnGoat »

cypress66 wrote: post #147
jimmydddd wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. The company is like yeah, we make some minor adminstrative mistakes. But the story says a woman spent 30 days in jail? Picture yourself in her shoes.

If somebody spent 30 days in jail because of a false report by Hertz, then it's not just hertz in the wrong. Arguably it's an even bigger failure by the judicial system.

Yea the judicial system always favors corporations.

If you steal $100 from work you go to jail. If work shorts you $100 in pay, your gonna need to get your own lawyer. Citizens are not given the benefit of the doubt against entities that only exist on paper and don’t suffer real consequences. It’s backwards to put it lightly.

Post reply on HN