Last edited Sun Feb 13, 2022, 06:06 PM - Edit history (1)
I saw this story mentioned in a crawl on the CBS Morning News a few days ago. It has not seen much light of day in print.
There was this thread at DU too:
Thu Feb 10, 2022, 07:21 PM: Hertz ordered to release data on number of renters it accuses of theft
Hertz claims thousands of renters steal cars. Customers argue they’ve been falsely accused.
By Marisa Iati
February 11, 2022 at 4:35 p.m. EST
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 percent 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.
{snip}
Hertz, specifically, has faced additional problems: It emerged from bankruptcy in June months after getting hit with a lawsuit alleging it had
withheld a time-stamped receipt that could prove a man innocent of murder. Then, in a viral Twitter thread, a different customer posted a scathing letter she had written to the company to complain about her “Kafkaesque customer service” experience.
{snip}
By Marisa Iati
Marisa Iati is a reporter for the General Assignment News Desk at The Washington Post. She previously worked at the Star-Ledger and NJ.com in New Jersey, where she covered municipal mayhem, community issues, education and crime. Twitter
https://twitter.com/marisa_iati
National
A Hertz receipt was an imprisoned man’s murder alibi. The company took years to turn it over.
By Derek Hawkins and Brittany Shammas
March 11, 2021 at 8:41 p.m. EST
Trial was looming, the charge murder. Herbert Alford had one piece of evidence he knew could show he was innocent — if only he could get his hands on it.
The Lansing, Mich., man was accused of gunning down a 23-year-old in broad daylight, in what prosecutors portrayed as an execution-style shooting over stolen drugs. But Alford was eight miles away renting a car at the time of the killing, according to his defense team. A time-stamped receipt from Hertz would prove it, they said.
For three years, Alford’s attorneys pressed Hertz to turn over the document but were met with silence and later pushback from the company. In the meantime, Alford was tried, convicted and sentenced to 32 to 62 years in prison based largely on testimony from witnesses — one of whom claimed he was a paid informant for police and would go on to recant his allegations.
Only in 2018, after a flurry of legal filings, did Hertz finally unearth the receipt, paving the way for Alford’s release last year.
{snip}
By Derek Hawkins
Derek Hawkins is a reporter covering national and breaking news. Twitter
https://twitter.com/d_hawk
By Brittany Shammas
Brittany Shammas is a general assignment reporter for The Washington Post. She previously worked for the Miami New Times and the South Florida Sun Sentinel. Twitter
https://twitter.com/britsham
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