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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

#71

Post by avgDev »

nickff wrote: post #37
avgDev wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion, which may be unpopular, a CEO who earns many times more than a regular employee should ensure that there are policies in place that prevent a regular employee or the "system" ruining a customers life. They should be held individually responsible if it can be proved in court that they ignored the issues.

Should the president of the USA be held responsible for some department of the US government ruining a citizen's life (which happens all the time)? What about a state governor, should they be responsible for all the state's agencies? How about a mayor whose police force or other department acts poorly?

Of course they should. If a cop makes a dumb move and the city gets sued then mayor should not be held accountable. However, if the mayor ignores police corruption, then I would love them to serve a prison sentence. They have the power, they must use it.

President should be responsible for things he can change, in US a president doesn't really have power to change everything as there are other parts of the government which are involved in decision making.

Any person in a position of power who can CHANGE policies or remove people and doesn't do so, which leads to further incidents and corruption that affect the population should be held accountable.

This will never happen, as powerful people don't want this.

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

#72

Post by Dracophoenix »

chickenpotpie wrote: post #53
nickff wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should the president of the USA be held responsible for some department of the US government ruining a citizen's life (which happens all the time)? What about a state governor, should they be responsible for all the state's agencies? How about a mayor whose police force or other department acts poorly?

If the president of the United States is knowingly making a profit from the actions of a government employee and they do not interfer, then yes they should go to jail. The line is murkier when someone is just doing a bad job, but if someone is knowingly making money from illegal behavior they can easily put a stop to they should go to prison.

> If the president of the United States is knowingly making a profit from the actions of a government employee and they do not interfer, then yes they should go to jail.

This would be a great argument for abolishing the IRS.

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

#73

Post by gpvos »

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.

Prison is a great deterrence, if targeted at the right people, in this case the executives.

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

#74

Post by kitanata »

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.

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 support prison time for the business leaders at Hertz who caused this problem to occur. Lock em up!

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

#75

Post by jakelazaroff »

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.

Yes, there should be legal consequences for the officers involved as well. Blame is not zero sum.

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

#76

Post by Lanolderen »

pitaj wrote: post #48
jonny_eh wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How does imprisoning someone help the victims in any way? People have some really fucked up ideas of justice. Sending people to prison for committing crimes is "fucked up"? We can quibble over which crimes deserve what sentence, but we shouldn't outright dismiss the possibility of imprisoning white collar criminals.

> Sending people to prison for committing crimes is "fucked up"? Unironically, yes. Prison is super fucked up. Prison time barely acts as a deterrent. It doesn't reform criminals. It has high costs for taxpayers. American prisons are entirely inhumane. Even heard of prison rape? Even violent criminals shouldn't have to endure what goes down in there. With modern technology, house arrest is far better. Even for extrem…

I'll never understand how people in the US believe their prisons are "entirely inhumane". I see it surprisingly often. Every time I've seen a video about an US prison they understandably don't seem like nice places to be at but definitely liveable albeit boring.

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

#77

Post by g_sch »

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…

I think your story carries an unspoken assumption that the police understood and/or cared about the law. I wouldn't be too sure that's the case.

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

#78

Post by hedora »

Once we rented a vehicle from them with a flat tire. Also, it had been electronically limited so that it could not drive at freeway speeds.

When I called customer support to deal with the issue, they hung up on me three times. (Typical conversation:

- Sit on hold for 15-45 minutes

- Hello, can I have your rental number?

- 12345-XYZ

-

I told the fourth person I'd be issuing a chargeback and dumping the vehicle in front of the locked gate of their parking lot if they also hung up. They directed us to a location that couldn't accept the vehicle.

We ended up paying for one day rental or something, but at least I didn't go to jail.

As other commenters said, multiple people (probably management, execs) at Hertz should be serving time in federal prison.

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

#79

Post by ajross »

stainablesteel wrote: post #24
HarryHirsch wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But... intent - Hertz had no intent to have customers locked up or threatened by out-of-control cops, so it's all good. When it comes to life-and-limb matters like this intent really shouldn't matter because it's nothing more than a get-out-of-jail card for executives who couldn't care less about the impact of their policies. No one important at Wells-Fargo went to jail either - they set policies which were expected…

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 developers think their buggy code works until the user reports or crash telemetry come back.

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

#80

Post by kabdib »

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.

Putting an executive in jail because they wrongly and deliberately caused a customer to be jailed seems pretty reasonable.

What else do you do, make them pay a fine that's just a rounding error on their checking account? Having them wear orange instead of pinstripes for a similar number of days will get their full, undivided attention.

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