Some spent days in jail, others months. One woman alleges she was arrested more than two years after she returned the vehicle she was accused of absconding with. All claim that the rental company Hertz reported them to police for stealing cars they had properly paid for.
Now Hertz has to publicize its number of theft accusations. In a ruling Wednesday, a federal judge in Delaware sided with the request from attorneys for 230 customers who say they were wrongly arrested.
The total still depends on whom you ask. Hertz said it reports to police 0.014% of its 25 million annual rental transactions - or 3,500 customers. Attorneys for the renters said they believe the number is closer to 8,000.
Francis Alexander Malofiy, one of those lawyers, said Hertz's tendency to report missing cars to police without investigating first is unacceptable, either way.
"This is not a question of if it's happening. It's a question of how many people it's happening to," he said Friday in an interview.
Hertz, which has been battling these allegations since 2019, maintains that it only reports renters to police after "exhaustive attempts" to reach them.
"The vast majority of these cases involve renters who were many weeks or even months overdue returning vehicles and who stopped communicating with us well beyond the scheduled due date," the company said in a statement.
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