At least 40 Hertz customers are facing prosecution and possible jail time when they say their only "crime" was driving the cars they had legally rented. These customers are suing Hertz over what they claim is a widespread pattern of false arrests. And they're demanding that the company put a stop to the prosecutions against them by withdrawing stolen car reports on the cars they rented--and that were returned long ago.
The demand is a potential embarrassment for new Hertz CEO Stephen Scherr, who called the arrests "unacceptable" and publicly promised to resolve these issues "very, very quickly." He is now being challenged to keep that promise. There's a simple lesson here every leader should learn: Saying the right thing to bolster your company's reputation and your own can seem like a great idea. But if you follow those noble words with inaction, you could wind up making things worse instead of better.
The issue of Hertz customers getting arrested merely for driving their rental cars is a longstanding one. The company has faced lawsuit after lawsuit over it, going back at least to the 1970s. Why would this happen? In most cases, the customer asked to extend a rental and was told that the extension was approved. But subsequently, the hold placed on the customer's credit or debit card failed to go through and at that point, plaintiffs say, the company issued a stolen car report.
More than 230 customers are currently suing the company for a total of about $530 million over...
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