Hertz Corp., facing lawsuits from hundreds of car renters who say they were falsely arrested for auto theft, files thousands of related criminal complaints each year against customers, according to claims in newly released court documents.
In one four-year period, the company filed nearly 8,000 theft reports annually, advocates for the falsely arrested customers said in a federal court filing in Wilmington, Delaware Thursday. The advocates cited internal data from Hertz that a judge ordered the company to release.
A breakdown of the theft reports isn’t public, so it’s not yet possible to know how many complaints were against customers and how many were for other types of theft. Under certain circumstances, Hertz will tell police that a customer may have stolen a car. Many of those people turn out to have valid contracts and allegedly have been falsely arrested, according to the lawsuits.
