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I think if you make one individual accountable for every mistake a company makes, then you change the nature of business. In this case, you want the CEO and bo

I think if you make one individual accountable for every mistake a company makes, then you change the nature of business. In this case, you want the CEO and board to go to prison because some low-level employee made a mistake on some paperwork. That could be avoided; simply don't report car thefts to the police. Charge people $20,000 up front to rent a $20,000 car, and say "if you return it and we feel like it, we'll give you $19,000" back. If the car gets stolen, not their problem anymore. If they mis-file some paperwork and don't give you $19,000 when you return it, well the contract you signed said "if we feel like it" and they didn't feel like it, so I guess keep the car if you want to. But, this business model would never work, so there simply wouldn't be car rental companies anymore. There has to be some abstraction layer between a company and its officers, or companies can't take the risk of delegating anything to employees. The reality of society is that sometimes something is going to get fucked up, and the dispute resolution process is expensive and messy. That's the legal system, and it exists for a reason. Ideally, most people don't have to use it very often, and the 0.001% of the time when something fails catastrophically, the pain of that one individual that it didn't work for makes society less painful for everyone else longer term. This person lost their real estate license, so that thousands of other people can drive someone else's car while they're on vacation without having to buy the car with cash outright. Net win? Probably. To some extent, you can always reduce the risk of anything to as low as you want. It's just that at some point, the cost of that makes the entire endeavor not worthwhile financially. Risk aversion is a tax on innovation, so you don't want to become too risk averse. I think society has found a decent balance here.

aaomidi 5y ago
> then you change the nature of business. Okay? Let's change the nature of business then. > I think society has found a decent balance here. People spending over a month in jail is the right balance here? What's to say this isn't something that's going to keep happening? What's the incentive for a company to actually do the right thing? Honestly fines for companies should be far, far higher. At the amounts of single to double digits percentage of the company's revenue.
Spooky23 5y ago
I get where you are coming from, but I had a job a few years ago where this type of incident would be pretty devastating. Some people’s employers would be aware of a pending arrest warrant within hours, likely before they are. People get immediately suspended without pay and need to hire an attorney, etc to figure out wtf is going on. Depending on what happened, it could take months to restore everything. I manage risk for a living. If a consumer needs to be worried about felony arrest when renting a fricking car, something is very wrong. I would assert that if the company’s incompetence in implementing, administrating, and signing off on controls is such that customers are being arrested because they can’t figure out wth their rental cars are, the executives should have Sarbanes-Oxley exposure and potential criminal liability.
- mschuster91 5y ago
  > If a consumer needs to be worried about felony arrest when renting a fricking car, something is very wrong. Indeed, but it is not surprising. Despite all copaganda, police has always never been "your friend", but the armed enforcers of capitalism. When a company files a police report, police are not going to question it. They will bash your door in, shoot your dog and/or yourself and/or your neighbors, ask questions later, and only pay for damages when ordered to do so by a lengthy court process. And no, I'm not just polemic here, this is reality. There have been countless house "search and seizure" operations on people who had committed the "crime" of having their wifi hotspot unsecured, who have downloaded stuff from university libraries (R.I.P. Aaron Swartz), for running TOR exit nodes, or for exposing government or corporate "secrets" that caused scandals.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    >but the armed enforcers of capitalism. They only care about capital, they care about maximizing their KPIs (which tend to have far more to do with protecting the state and/or generating revenue) and getting paid. Their KPIs only reflect protecting capital as much as trickles down from the elected executives who are ultimately at the top of the accountability (or lack thereof) pyramid. If enforcement cared directly about capital dangers to the public and crimes of possession would be taken a lot less seriously than they are and property crimes would be taken a lot more seriously.
pkaye 5y ago
Maybe require these kind of decisions pass through a senior executive who if they make a wrong decision gets arrested and charged.
inetknght 5y ago
> In this case, you want the CEO and board to go to prison because some low-level employee made a mistake on some paperwork. Yes. If the CEO and board want the responsibility of owning a company then yes they should also own-up to fuck-ups by their employees. If big companies don't want to be responsible for thousands of employees then perhaps it's time to split up the responsibilities -- and the compensations too.
- refurb 5y ago
  That makes no sense at all. You want a CEO to go to jail if an employee decides to do their job wrong?
  - jfrunyon 5y ago
    How else do we incentivize companies to make sure things like this don't happen, if there's no punishment for companies who do them repeatedly?
  - lancepioch 5y ago
    Maybe let's try rephrasing it. Knowingly making a false report to the police is a crime. If it happens once or twice or even a few times over several years, that's not such a big deal, mistakes happen. But in this case, it seems like there are several hundred false reports over several years. It's so much, that Hertz was able to hand over a database of data related to it. This is negligence, they clearly know they are doing something wrong and they know it's harming other people. If tens or hundreds of your employees are making false reports consistently over many years and you're not doing something to resolve it? I suppose the answer to your question is yes.
    - kube-system 5y ago
      Knowing the your employees are making mistakes is not the same as knowingly making a false statement. And making statements that are found to be untrue is also not the same as making a false statement. For it to be a crime, a single person must willingly make a statement that they know is false. Making a statement and being incorrect about it is not criminal. Knowing that other people have made incorrect statements is not criminal. That being said, making mistakes that harms other people is a civil tort. And that’s why these cases are going to a judge now as mentioned in the article. It also worth noting that the article is about allegedly untrue reports of car theft. Whether or not those claims are accurate still remains to be tested in court.
jfrunyon 5y ago
> In this case, you want the CEO and board to go to prison because ... The organization which he manages does this on a regular basis.
FpUser 5y ago
>"This person lost their real estate license, so that thousands of other people can drive someone else's car while they're on vacation without having to buy the car with cash outright. Net win? Probably." If said person get immediately compensated to full extent and a lot more on top. If any record of being criminally charged and any trace of arrest / interaction with police in regards to criminal matter gets wiped out. Then maybe. Otherwise fuck those vacationers. They're free to go and buy car or vote for the system that does not jail people for hint of offence.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
rectang 5y ago
> This person lost their real estate license, so that thousands of other people can drive someone else's car while they're on vacation without having to buy the car with cash outright. Net win? Probably. "Thank you for your patriotic sacrifice, comrade customer."
glogla 5y ago
> This person lost their real estate license, so that thousands of other people can drive someone else's car while they're on vacation without having to buy the car with cash outright. Net win? Probably. You just failed Voight-Kampff test.
JackFr 5y ago
Blockchain.

aaomidi 5y ago

> then you change the nature of business. Okay? Let's change the nature of business then. > I think society has found a decent balance here. People spending over a month in jail is the right balance here? What's to say this isn't something that's going to keep happening? What's the incentive for a company to actually do the right thing? Honestly fines for companies should be far, far higher. At the amounts of single to double digits percentage of the company's revenue.

Spooky23 5y ago

I get where you are coming from, but I had a job a few years ago where this type of incident would be pretty devastating. Some people’s employers would be aware of a pending arrest warrant within hours, likely before they are. People get immediately suspended without pay and need to hire an attorney, etc to figure out wtf is going on. Depending on what happened, it could take months to restore everything. I manage risk for a living. If a consumer needs to be worried about felony arrest when renting a fricking car, something is very wrong. I would assert that if the company’s incompetence in implementing, administrating, and signing off on controls is such that customers are being arrested because they can’t figure out wth their rental cars are, the executives should have Sarbanes-Oxley exposure and potential criminal liability.

mschuster91 5y ago
> If a consumer needs to be worried about felony arrest when renting a fricking car, something is very wrong. Indeed, but it is not surprising. Despite all copaganda, police has always never been "your friend", but the armed enforcers of capitalism. When a company files a police report, police are not going to question it. They will bash your door in, shoot your dog and/or yourself and/or your neighbors, ask questions later, and only pay for damages when ordered to do so by a lengthy court process. And no, I'm not just polemic here, this is reality. There have been countless house "search and seizure" operations on people who had committed the "crime" of having their wifi hotspot unsecured, who have downloaded stuff from university libraries (R.I.P. Aaron Swartz), for running TOR exit nodes, or for exposing government or corporate "secrets" that caused scandals.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  >but the armed enforcers of capitalism. They only care about capital, they care about maximizing their KPIs (which tend to have far more to do with protecting the state and/or generating revenue) and getting paid. Their KPIs only reflect protecting capital as much as trickles down from the elected executives who are ultimately at the top of the accountability (or lack thereof) pyramid. If enforcement cared directly about capital dangers to the public and crimes of possession would be taken a lot less seriously than they are and property crimes would be taken a lot more seriously.

pkaye 5y ago

Maybe require these kind of decisions pass through a senior executive who if they make a wrong decision gets arrested and charged.

inetknght 5y ago

> In this case, you want the CEO and board to go to prison because some low-level employee made a mistake on some paperwork. Yes. If the CEO and board want the responsibility of owning a company then yes they should also own-up to fuck-ups by their employees. If big companies don't want to be responsible for thousands of employees then perhaps it's time to split up the responsibilities -- and the compensations too.

refurb 5y ago
That makes no sense at all. You want a CEO to go to jail if an employee decides to do their job wrong?
- jfrunyon 5y ago
  How else do we incentivize companies to make sure things like this don't happen, if there's no punishment for companies who do them repeatedly?
- lancepioch 5y ago
  Maybe let's try rephrasing it. Knowingly making a false report to the police is a crime. If it happens once or twice or even a few times over several years, that's not such a big deal, mistakes happen. But in this case, it seems like there are several hundred false reports over several years. It's so much, that Hertz was able to hand over a database of data related to it. This is negligence, they clearly know they are doing something wrong and they know it's harming other people. If tens or hundreds of your employees are making false reports consistently over many years and you're not doing something to resolve it? I suppose the answer to your question is yes.
  - kube-system 5y ago
    Knowing the your employees are making mistakes is not the same as knowingly making a false statement. And making statements that are found to be untrue is also not the same as making a false statement. For it to be a crime, a single person must willingly make a statement that they know is false. Making a statement and being incorrect about it is not criminal. Knowing that other people have made incorrect statements is not criminal. That being said, making mistakes that harms other people is a civil tort. And that’s why these cases are going to a judge now as mentioned in the article. It also worth noting that the article is about allegedly untrue reports of car theft. Whether or not those claims are accurate still remains to be tested in court.

jfrunyon 5y ago

> In this case, you want the CEO and board to go to prison because ... The organization which he manages does this on a regular basis.

FpUser 5y ago

>"This person lost their real estate license, so that thousands of other people can drive someone else's car while they're on vacation without having to buy the car with cash outright. Net win? Probably." If said person get immediately compensated to full extent and a lot more on top. If any record of being criminally charged and any trace of arrest / interaction with police in regards to criminal matter gets wiped out. Then maybe. Otherwise fuck those vacationers. They're free to go and buy car or vote for the system that does not jail people for hint of offence.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

rectang 5y ago

> This person lost their real estate license, so that thousands of other people can drive someone else's car while they're on vacation without having to buy the car with cash outright. Net win? Probably. "Thank you for your patriotic sacrifice, comrade customer."

glogla 5y ago

JackFr 5y ago

Blockchain.