5 ms·

Hertz Files 3,365 Stolen Car Reports Every Year on Customers Who Rented Its Cars

38 points by areoform 5y ago

draw_down 5y ago
kragen 5y ago
10 a day doesn't sound like a lot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hertz_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hertz_Corporation says their revenue is US$5.3 billion a year, which is probably about 100 million rental car days, so probably about 30 million customers, so 3400 thefts a year is about one out of every 10,000 rentals. It would be surprising to me if the number of thefts was really that low. Cold comfort if you're one of the false positives, though. Though it sounds like the risk of that is probably close to 0.01%. This doesn't seem like a big enough risk to worry about. Glancing at the article, it says the number is actually 1.4 per 10,000 rentals, so I guess Hertz does 30% less rentals than I guessed.
- tedunangst 5y ago
  1 in 10000 might be ok for "sorry, the car you reserved isn't available; we're sold out; have fun walking" but not for spending a month in jail awaiting extradition on a bullshit charge. A month in jail is a serious career trajectory altering event for most people. And it's not like hertz is going to do anything to make things better for you.
  - kragen 5y ago
    Remember that 1 in 10000 (or 1.4 in 10000) is the total number of reported thefts, not the number of falsely reported thefts, much less the number of falsely reported thefts that result in arrests or a month in jail. And I'm guessing that the number of extraditions is zero so far. I think you're vastly underestimating the uncertainty that people confront every day. Here are some other things carrying a risk of about 1 in 10000 that something terrible will happen: - Going skydiving or hang gliding 20 times has about a 1 in 10000 chance that you will die. - If you're a child aged 3-13 in the US, being alive for a year has about a 1 in 10000 chance of killing you. Or being alive for a month as an adult aged 24-34. Or being alive for 11 days as a 45-year-old man. - Unprotected vaginal intercourse; the odds that you get HIV on a given occasion are said to be actually about 10 in 10000, an order of magnitude worse, but I have to assume that's with a new partner. Presumably this means that vaginal intercourse with a new partner with a condom has about a 1 in 10000 chance of giving you HIV, since condoms probably have about a 10% failure rate in that situation, due to breakage, intentional removal, or misuse. This is assuming pregnancy doesn't count as "something terrible". - Speaking of pregnancy, the risk that giving birth will kill you is about 2 in 10000 in developed regions of the world. In Africa it's 80 in 10000. - And if you do have a baby, the risk that your baby will die before reaching 3 years old is about 60 in 10000, in the US. It's about 4 in 10000 that they'll die the day they're born. - Your lifetime risk of drowning in your bathtub are about 1 in 10000. Your lifetime risk of choking to death on your food is about twice that. - Living in a house for your lifetime has about a 1 in 10000 chance that the house will catch fire and burn you to death, in the US. The situation is much worse in areas with worse building codes. - Living around human beings for a year carries about a 1 in 10000 chance that one of them will murder you, though this is an average that includes both Oakland and Israel. - Scuba diving has about a 1 in 10000 chance of killing you in 10 dives. - Riding a motorcycle has about a 1 in 10000 chance of killing you every 1000 km. - Smoking 140 cigarettes had about a 1 in 10000 chance of killing you with lung cancer in the 01970s. Presumably your chances of survival are better now, but cancer still isn't fun. - Watching television for 200 hours reduces your life expectancy by 100 hours, which is the same reduction in life expectancy as a 1 in 10000 chance of instant death. So, that's why I think a 1 in 10000 chance of a car theft report --- probably reducing to 1 in 100000 or less if you didn't actually steal the car --- isn't big enough to worry about.
    - eesmith 5y ago
      > is the total number of reported thefts To be clear, that's only for "theft by conversion reports". The article points out there's "an unknown number of other types of theft reports, since the other categories are still under seal." Your logic seems to be that Hertz should be free to cut costs by outsourcing inventory control to the police - even when the car is on the lot! - so long as its statistical impact is less than that of scuba diving? Because Hertz has been sued before. https://www.yahoo.com/news/ve-rented-car-hertz-could-140608298.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/ve-rented-car-hertz-could-1406082... > During a lawsuit in Philadelphia in 2017, before the Hertz bankruptcy, Hertz’s national vehicle control supervisor took the stand and admitted on cross-examination that police reports do not always contain accurate payment information, contacts with customers, and that Hertz does not correct or supplement reports that it knows are false or misleading. > “Hertz is on record as saying that even when they learn information (in police reports) is inaccurate, they refused to correct it because it would hurt their relationship with the police and the police will no longer take their false police reports,” Malofiy said. > Court records show that police at the Indianapolis and Louisville airports did just that. After multiple reports of stolen vehicles that ended up being located on Hertz’s lots, those agencies reportedly said they wouldn’t take new reports from the company.
      - kragen 5y ago
        Well, I don't think Hertz should be using lethal force against anyone, even by proxy. So in particular I don't think they should outsource inventory control to the police. But whether you should worry about this depends on who you are and what position you're in. From the point of view of a court or a lawmaker this is relevant, but for someone who's considering whether to rent a car there, the risk is probably too small to worry about.
        eesmith 5y ago
        Nonsense. There are multiple vendors for rental cars. When something like this happens, use another vendor. Else there's no economic reason for Hertz to change, and overall consumer conditions get worse.
- aliswe 5y ago
  10 a day would be 3650 though. Interesting that the last 3 digits are 365 !
  - kragen 5y ago
    That caught my attention too!
- kragen 5y ago
  Addendum: my reasoning here was wrong, and it turns out that Hertz actually probably is worse than the alternatives, though it's still not a large risk in absolute terms. See the rest of the comment thread below for details.
camgunz 5y ago
We rented from Hertz and something happened when we returned our car where they didn't mark it as returned, and kept charging us $100/day for it. After weeks of DMing on Twitter (which is _bonkers_) we finally got it resolved and reimbursed. I guess we should feel lucky we didn't get arrested. This is obviously part of their business policy.
- vertis 5y ago
  We rented a Tesla from Hertz in SF while there on business in 2017, for something to do on the weekend. Returned it after driving across the Golden Gate and around a bit and then flew on to NY. Weeks (Months?, it's been a while so I'm hazy) later I get a nasty letter back in Australia threatening to pursue me for not returning the car. Needless to say I hopped on the phone to the 'Prestige' office that I'd rented it from and they sorted it out in short order. Error in their system. Not the nicest experience though.
  - prawn 5y ago
    Ha! I'm Australian and heard from them also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30595985 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30595985
prawn 5y ago
I rented a car in the US from Hertz while on a long trip there. I wasn't sure of the exact return date (several weeks) and I only had an international debit card and not a credit card. The guy at the counter was perfectly fine with this, said he'd note it on the file and I could settle up when returning it, whenever that was. Drove the car around the East Coast for weeks and then returned it and paid what I owed. Got back home to Australia and found threatening letters from them saying that the car hadn't been returned and was considered stolen, police had been notified, etc. The letter was sent at about the 10-14 day mark, and from memory we had the car for at least a few more weeks after that. Ignored it and never heard anything else about it. Whenever possible, I use Alamo when in the US. They've always been excellent.

38 points by areoform 5y ago

10 a day doesn't sound like a lot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hertz_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hertz_Corporation says their revenue is US$5.3 billion a year, which is probably about 100 million rental car days, so probably about 30 million customers, so 3400 thefts a year is about one out of every 10,000 rentals. It would be surprising to me if the number of thefts was really that low. Cold comfort if you're one of the false positives, though. Though it sounds like the risk of that is probably close to 0.01%. This doesn't seem like a big enough risk to worry about. Glancing at the article, it says the number is actually 1.4 per 10,000 rentals, so I guess Hertz does 30% less rentals than I guessed.

tedunangst 5y ago
1 in 10000 might be ok for "sorry, the car you reserved isn't available; we're sold out; have fun walking" but not for spending a month in jail awaiting extradition on a bullshit charge. A month in jail is a serious career trajectory altering event for most people. And it's not like hertz is going to do anything to make things better for you.
- kragen 5y ago
  Remember that 1 in 10000 (or 1.4 in 10000) is the total number of reported thefts, not the number of falsely reported thefts, much less the number of falsely reported thefts that result in arrests or a month in jail. And I'm guessing that the number of extraditions is zero so far. I think you're vastly underestimating the uncertainty that people confront every day. Here are some other things carrying a risk of about 1 in 10000 that something terrible will happen: - Going skydiving or hang gliding 20 times has about a 1 in 10000 chance that you will die. - If you're a child aged 3-13 in the US, being alive for a year has about a 1 in 10000 chance of killing you. Or being alive for a month as an adult aged 24-34. Or being alive for 11 days as a 45-year-old man. - Unprotected vaginal intercourse; the odds that you get HIV on a given occasion are said to be actually about 10 in 10000, an order of magnitude worse, but I have to assume that's with a new partner. Presumably this means that vaginal intercourse with a new partner with a condom has about a 1 in 10000 chance of giving you HIV, since condoms probably have about a 10% failure rate in that situation, due to breakage, intentional removal, or misuse. This is assuming pregnancy doesn't count as "something terrible". - Speaking of pregnancy, the risk that giving birth will kill you is about 2 in 10000 in developed regions of the world. In Africa it's 80 in 10000. - And if you do have a baby, the risk that your baby will die before reaching 3 years old is about 60 in 10000, in the US. It's about 4 in 10000 that they'll die the day they're born. - Your lifetime risk of drowning in your bathtub are about 1 in 10000. Your lifetime risk of choking to death on your food is about twice that. - Living in a house for your lifetime has about a 1 in 10000 chance that the house will catch fire and burn you to death, in the US. The situation is much worse in areas with worse building codes. - Living around human beings for a year carries about a 1 in 10000 chance that one of them will murder you, though this is an average that includes both Oakland and Israel. - Scuba diving has about a 1 in 10000 chance of killing you in 10 dives. - Riding a motorcycle has about a 1 in 10000 chance of killing you every 1000 km. - Smoking 140 cigarettes had about a 1 in 10000 chance of killing you with lung cancer in the 01970s. Presumably your chances of survival are better now, but cancer still isn't fun. - Watching television for 200 hours reduces your life expectancy by 100 hours, which is the same reduction in life expectancy as a 1 in 10000 chance of instant death. So, that's why I think a 1 in 10000 chance of a car theft report --- probably reducing to 1 in 100000 or less if you didn't actually steal the car --- isn't big enough to worry about.
  - eesmith 5y ago
    > is the total number of reported thefts To be clear, that's only for "theft by conversion reports". The article points out there's "an unknown number of other types of theft reports, since the other categories are still under seal." Your logic seems to be that Hertz should be free to cut costs by outsourcing inventory control to the police - even when the car is on the lot! - so long as its statistical impact is less than that of scuba diving? Because Hertz has been sued before. https://www.yahoo.com/news/ve-rented-car-hertz-could-140608298.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/ve-rented-car-hertz-could-1406082... > During a lawsuit in Philadelphia in 2017, before the Hertz bankruptcy, Hertz’s national vehicle control supervisor took the stand and admitted on cross-examination that police reports do not always contain accurate payment information, contacts with customers, and that Hertz does not correct or supplement reports that it knows are false or misleading. > “Hertz is on record as saying that even when they learn information (in police reports) is inaccurate, they refused to correct it because it would hurt their relationship with the police and the police will no longer take their false police reports,” Malofiy said. > Court records show that police at the Indianapolis and Louisville airports did just that. After multiple reports of stolen vehicles that ended up being located on Hertz’s lots, those agencies reportedly said they wouldn’t take new reports from the company.
    - kragen 5y ago
      Well, I don't think Hertz should be using lethal force against anyone, even by proxy. So in particular I don't think they should outsource inventory control to the police. But whether you should worry about this depends on who you are and what position you're in. From the point of view of a court or a lawmaker this is relevant, but for someone who's considering whether to rent a car there, the risk is probably too small to worry about.
      - eesmith 5y ago
        Nonsense. There are multiple vendors for rental cars. When something like this happens, use another vendor. Else there's no economic reason for Hertz to change, and overall consumer conditions get worse.
aliswe 5y ago
10 a day would be 3650 though. Interesting that the last 3 digits are 365 !
- kragen 5y ago
  That caught my attention too!
kragen 5y ago
Addendum: my reasoning here was wrong, and it turns out that Hertz actually probably is worse than the alternatives, though it's still not a large risk in absolute terms. See the rest of the comment thread below for details.

camgunz 5y ago

We rented from Hertz and something happened when we returned our car where they didn't mark it as returned, and kept charging us $100/day for it. After weeks of DMing on Twitter (which is _bonkers_) we finally got it resolved and reimbursed. I guess we should feel lucky we didn't get arrested. This is obviously part of their business policy.

vertis 5y ago
We rented a Tesla from Hertz in SF while there on business in 2017, for something to do on the weekend. Returned it after driving across the Golden Gate and around a bit and then flew on to NY. Weeks (Months?, it's been a while so I'm hazy) later I get a nasty letter back in Australia threatening to pursue me for not returning the car. Needless to say I hopped on the phone to the 'Prestige' office that I'd rented it from and they sorted it out in short order. Error in their system. Not the nicest experience though.
- prawn 5y ago
  Ha! I'm Australian and heard from them also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30595985 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30595985

prawn 5y ago

I rented a car in the US from Hertz while on a long trip there. I wasn't sure of the exact return date (several weeks) and I only had an international debit card and not a credit card. The guy at the counter was perfectly fine with this, said he'd note it on the file and I could settle up when returning it, whenever that was. Drove the car around the East Coast for weeks and then returned it and paid what I owed. Got back home to Australia and found threatening letters from them saying that the car hadn't been returned and was considered stolen, police had been notified, etc. The letter was sent at about the 10-14 day mark, and from memory we had the car for at least a few more weeks after that. Ignored it and never heard anything else about it. Whenever possible, I use Alamo when in the US. They've always been excellent.