On Thursday, a bankruptcy judge began hearing arguments on claims filed by dozens of Hertz customers. They say that they were falsely arrested and some of them were even jailed as the rental company reported that the cars they had rented had been stolen. The Florida based giant refuted the claims.
According to a report by CBS the car rental giant insisted that all the claims filed against the company were “meritless”. It also claimed that the case should not proceed further and put forth several technical reasons.
There are 165 customers across the nation who have claims against the company pending in the bankruptcy court. The company has recently emerged from bankruptcy. The claims had been put on hold as the focus was on the completion of the bankruptcy case against Hertz.
The complainants described the experiences they faced as the cars that they were driving were reported as stolen. They spoke of humiliation, anger and fear. They also said that they had been embarrassed although they had not committed any crime. Some of them even spent several hours in jail and police reports were not pulled back.
When asked for an interview by CBS News, Hertz declined to do so. However, it issued a statement which said that the company cared deeply about its customers and that they “successfully” provided “rental vehicles for tens of millions of travelers each year.”
Hertz also said that the attorneys who were representing the claimants had a track record of “making baseless claims” and that they had blatantly misrepresented facts.
Last year, the company told the Philadelphia Inquirer that the reports were valid when they had been filed and that it was “up to law enforcement to decide what to do with the case.”
The claimants’ attorney, Francis Alexander Malofiy told CBS News that it was Hertz that was “trying to hide” what he referred to as “a corporate disaster.” He also said that the company had been aware about the matter from years.
Malofiy added that the company was “trying to sweep” the problem “ under the rug” instead of addressing it. He said that they were “turning legitimate renters into criminals” even when they were going through bankruptcy
Hertz was said to be the No.2 auto rental company in the nation.
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