Rental cars can be the worst. Be it lumpy seats, a lingering odour from previous passengers, or, if you use Hertz, the potential of being arrested for a crime you didn’t commit.
What happened: Former meme stock darling Hertz doled out US$168 million to settle 364 claims that it falsely reported rental cars as stolen when they just weren’t returned on time.
- Shares fell 2.96% on the day, denting the financial situation of a company that only just managed to exit bankruptcy oversight thanks to a red-hot car rental market.
- Hertz CEO Stephen Scherr also said back in April that the false arrests affected only “1/100th of one percent” of Hertz customers (still quite a few people).
Why it matters: Hertz's oversight led to hundreds of false arrests by armed officers (across the US and Canada) and several imprisonments of innocent drivers trying to get from Point A to B.
Bottom line: In case you thought a multi-million dollar oopsie would help the company learn their lesson, one Hertz spokesperson told CNN this week that the company is “not currently detailing any specific steps being taken to prevent future such occurrences.”