Hertz to Pay $168 Million to Customers Who Say They Were Falsely Accused of Auto Theft

The company said on Monday that it would pay $168 million to resolve disputes with customers who were wrongly accused of vehicle theft.

According to lawsuits filed on behalf of customers across the country, the company occasionally recorded certain vehicles as stolen, even after customers had extended and paid for their rental periods.

After hiring a new chief executive, the company acknowledged some wrongdoing. The vast majority of pending claims relating to vehicle theft will be resolved with thePayout, according to the statement.

The chief executive of the company said that he intended to lead a company that put the customer first. He said that while the company would not always be perfect, it would still work to provide leading service to the millions of customers it serves.

Customers who say they were arrested at gun point, thrown in jail, or prosecuted after the company claimed they had stolen one of its vehicles are some of the allegations reported by CBS News. The company revealed it was filing thousands of police reports each year after the judge in Delaware ruled that it must make public the number of people it filed complaints against.

Dollar Rent A Car, Inc., and Thrifty Rent-A- Car System, are subsidiaries of the same company. Court documents list those companies as defendants.

According to a lawsuit filed in August in Superior Court in Delaware, false reports of theft most often fall into two categories: ones in which the company misplaces a car and ones in which the car is late. The lawsuit states that the company classified cars as stolen when they were actually rented out to customers or sitting on its lots.

The lawsuit said that the goal of the company was to protect its profits and cut its costs, even if it knew that its own customers would lose their liberty and freedom as a result.

According to a lawsuit filed in the same court in 2020, a woman was arrested in April of this year in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., after she extended and paid for her CarRentals. She missed her nursing school graduation and was separated from her husband and two children while she was in jail.

A man who turned himself in to authorities in Georgia after learning there was a warrant for his arrest on charges that he stole a car paid for the vehicle and returned it. He was sentenced to six and a half months in jail after missing a hearing.

The lawyers representing the people could not be reached on Monday.

The settlement amount will be paid by the end of the year, according to a statement from the company.

Beachy was involved in research.