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These stories are awful - this wasn't just an administrative headache for people, they served real time and has real consequences. Filing a false police report

These stories are awful - this wasn't just an administrative headache for people, they served real time and has real consequences. Filing a false police report is a crime, it would be nice to see that enforced against the company in one way or another.

HarryHirsch 4y ago
But... intent - Hertz had no intent to have customers locked up or threatened by out-of-control cops, so it's all good. When it comes to life-and-limb matters like this intent really shouldn't matter because it's nothing more than a get-out-of-jail card for executives who couldn't care less about the impact of their policies. No one important at Wells-Fargo went to jail either - they set policies which were expected to have certain outcomes, but top brass could not have possibly have foreseen the outcomes. I'm sick of plausible deniability, especially when it isn't even plausible any longer, the complaints go back years.
- fallingknife 4y ago
  Intent always matters. And it is absolutely plausible that a rental car could be marked stolen through a bureaucratic error. If fact, in this case, it's more than plausible. It's pretty much inconceivable that a rental car company would intend to just say "fuck you in particular" to a few customers and try to put them in jail. Those customers should obviously get their judgment money, and Hertz should pay a heavy price (maybe even such a heavy price that they go bankrupt), but no one should go to jail for filing a false police report unless they intended to mislead the police.
  - jakelazaroff 4y ago
    "A rental car company" didn't do anything. Humans working at a rental car company did. Maybe it was a "bureaucratic error" that fraudulently reported the cars as stolen. That bureaucracy didn't spontaneously emerge from dust. Humans built it. Why should humans not face legal repercussions for the havoc they've wreaked on their victims' lives?
    - xwolfi 4y ago
      Because the havoc they ve wreaked could have been avoided, if only the police itself, a public service, behaved appropriately. Declaring a car stolen by mistake shouldnt be the end of the world. One day someone with the same name as me committed an offense and I was wrongly given to the police of my country, and it took 5 minutes to clear me and nothing happened.
      - shkkmo 4y ago
        It Hertz didn't intend to ruin people's lives, they would withdraw the police reports when confronted with their mistakes. Instead, the company prohibits that because: > A Hertz spokesperson told the Philadelphia Inquirer in 2020 that the company has no “mechanism” to withdraw reports and does not do so because “In the rare instances this happens, if you report a crime, and you later say it didn’t happen, then law enforcement tends not to believe you if you retract it or say you were mistaken,” the spokesperson said. “Hertz’s continued good relationship with law enforcement is important.” [0] It seems like there is plenty of intent there. The intent to continue lieing to police to protect Hertz's reputation at severe cost to Hertz's victims. [0] https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2022/04/11/hertz-stolen-cars-false-arrests/9515487002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2022/04/11/hertz-stolen...
        SpelingBeeChamp 4y ago
        I just searched the Philadelphia Inquirer website for that phrase and was unable to find anything. I also searched Google for the phrase, both with and without quotes, and with/without the words “Philadelphia Inquirer,” and I haven’t found the original source. Are you able to find the source of that quote? It’s so outrageous, and is so not something that a corporate spokesperson would say, that I wonder if it’s somehow been taken out of context. Or if it even happened.
        shkkmo 4y ago
        I doubt USA Today made that quote up, since it would open them to significant defamation liability. While I can't find an article with that exact quote, this article is from the right time period and does paraphrase a very similar sentiment as coming from Hertz: https://www.inquirer.com/business/retail/hertz-stolen-car-grand-theft-auto-malofiy-bankruptcy-lawsuit-20200803.html https://www.inquirer.com/business/retail/hertz-stolen-car-gr... > Hertz has no mechanism to withdraw a criminal referral because, the company spokesperson said, it has to maintain a relationship of “integrity and responsibility” with law enforcement
  - HarryHirsch 4y ago
    That's an assertion of belief, not a statement of fact. It's plainly visible that current policies have led to a rash of false police reports (the 168 MUSD judgement is more than sufficient proof), and there is no need why society should put up with the carelessness of Hertz. The problem is pervasive enough to go beyond isolated cases (after all they were slapped with an 8-digit civil fine). Civil law deals with damages to individuals, and criminal law sets expectations for society to prevent trouble. Hertz's incompetence has reached criminal levels, and anyone who rolls out intent as a defense needs to examine himself it that's desirable. (Speeders, drunk drivers and violently abusive parents rarely intend to kill people but we still have laws on the books to treat such cases adequately.)
    - shkkmo 4y ago
      > the 168 MUSD judgement is more than sufficient proof This is a settlement, not a judgement.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  - halpmeh 4y ago
    People should also be punished for gross negligence. Hertz filed hundreds of false police reports. After the first few, they should have updated their system. The fact that they allowed the continual filing of false police reports is a willful disregard for the safety of others.
  - z3c0 4y ago
    What you're describing is "culpability" and it most certainly does get considered separately from intent (mea culpa vs mens rea). Not knowing whether or not you were within the boundaries of the law is only an excuse when you reasonably couldn't have ever known, with no opportunity for due diligence. Bureaucracy is not ever going to be a legitimate excuse for not knowing if you were acting within the law, because chances are that you could have verified so with any amount of effort.
- stainablesteel 4y ago
  intent is one thing, neglect is another
  - randcraw 4y ago
    Or depraved indifference.
  - ajross 4y ago
    It is for the crime that you're discussing. Filing a false police report is criminal precisely because of intent. Needless to say, if you have a good faith belief that you report to the police[1], you should be able to do so without fear of prosecution if you're wrong! [1] And whether people like it or not, Hertz clearly thought this system worked at the time they reported the "stolen" cars; just like software developers think their buggy code works until the user reports or crash telemetry come back.
    - phpisthebest 4y ago
      The key part of the law is "know or SHOULD HAVE KNOWN" They can not claim poor record keeping and ignorance as an excuse for filing false reports, they SHOULD HAVE KNOWN, which is part of the intent standard in most jurisdictions 1, 2, even 10 reports ok... they suck. 100's of false reports, that is beyond simple clerical error it would not take much to convince a jury that intent is there. i.e they internally setup the process that lead to false reports being filed likely as a say to cut costs
      - ajross 4y ago
        That seems to be assuming facts not in evidence, though. Did Hertz decisionmakers continue operating the system after having been notified it was giving false positives? I tend to agree that sounds like criminal negligence. But nothing seems to be alleging that anywhere. Flipping it around: would you feel comfortable calling the police to report that criminal negligence? Or would you be worried about getting in trouble for a false report? The system is tilted towards non-prosecution, and for some very good reasons. No one's going to jail here.
pitaj 4y ago
Personally I'd prefer customers be directly compensated than companies just be fined or people imprisoned.
- pavlov 4y ago
  Why not both?
- ethanbond 4y ago
  Why can't they be compensated directly for the financial damages and then put the perpetrators in prison for all the damages that can't be moneyed-away?
  - pitaj 4y ago
    How does imprisoning someone help the victims in any way? People have some really fucked up ideas of justice. Justice should focus first on making victims whole, then on rehabilitating the perpetrators to prevent victimization in the future. Imprisonment serves neither of those goals.
    - jonny_eh 4y ago
      > How does imprisoning someone help the victims in any way? People have some really fucked up ideas of justice. Sending people to prison for committing crimes is "fucked up"? We can quibble over which crimes deserve what sentence, but we shouldn't outright dismiss the possibility of imprisoning white collar criminals.
      - pitaj 4y ago
        > Sending people to prison for committing crimes is "fucked up"? Unironically, yes. Prison is super fucked up. Prison time barely acts as a deterrent. It doesn't reform criminals. It has high costs for taxpayers. American prisons are entirely inhumane. Even heard of prison rape? Even violent criminals shouldn't have to endure what goes down in there. With modern technology, house arrest is far better. Even for extremely violent criminals who are a existent danger, prison is not right. They should be in mental hospitals.
jimmydddd 4y ago
Agreed. The company is like yeah, we make some minor adminstrative mistakes. But the story says a woman spent 30 days in jail? Picture yourself in her shoes.
- cypress66 4y ago
  If somebody spent 30 days in jail because of a false report by Hertz, then it's not just hertz in the wrong. Arguably it's an even bigger failure by the judicial system.
  - mtnGoat 4y ago
    Yea the judicial system always favors corporations. If you steal $100 from work you go to jail. If work shorts you $100 in pay, your gonna need to get your own lawyer. Citizens are not given the benefit of the doubt against entities that only exist on paper and don’t suffer real consequences. It’s backwards to put it lightly.
- twelve40 4y ago
  if something like that happened to me, i would make it my life's mission to work whatever legal means there are to hunt down every one of these "reporters". Going to jail for a fully paid rental in the States is so absurd, I can't believe it.

HarryHirsch 4y ago

But... intent - Hertz had no intent to have customers locked up or threatened by out-of-control cops, so it's all good. When it comes to life-and-limb matters like this intent really shouldn't matter because it's nothing more than a get-out-of-jail card for executives who couldn't care less about the impact of their policies. No one important at Wells-Fargo went to jail either - they set policies which were expected to have certain outcomes, but top brass could not have possibly have foreseen the outcomes. I'm sick of plausible deniability, especially when it isn't even plausible any longer, the complaints go back years.

fallingknife 4y ago
Intent always matters. And it is absolutely plausible that a rental car could be marked stolen through a bureaucratic error. If fact, in this case, it's more than plausible. It's pretty much inconceivable that a rental car company would intend to just say "fuck you in particular" to a few customers and try to put them in jail. Those customers should obviously get their judgment money, and Hertz should pay a heavy price (maybe even such a heavy price that they go bankrupt), but no one should go to jail for filing a false police report unless they intended to mislead the police.
- jakelazaroff 4y ago
  "A rental car company" didn't do anything. Humans working at a rental car company did. Maybe it was a "bureaucratic error" that fraudulently reported the cars as stolen. That bureaucracy didn't spontaneously emerge from dust. Humans built it. Why should humans not face legal repercussions for the havoc they've wreaked on their victims' lives?
  - xwolfi 4y ago
    Because the havoc they ve wreaked could have been avoided, if only the police itself, a public service, behaved appropriately. Declaring a car stolen by mistake shouldnt be the end of the world. One day someone with the same name as me committed an offense and I was wrongly given to the police of my country, and it took 5 minutes to clear me and nothing happened.
    - shkkmo 4y ago
      It Hertz didn't intend to ruin people's lives, they would withdraw the police reports when confronted with their mistakes. Instead, the company prohibits that because: > A Hertz spokesperson told the Philadelphia Inquirer in 2020 that the company has no “mechanism” to withdraw reports and does not do so because “In the rare instances this happens, if you report a crime, and you later say it didn’t happen, then law enforcement tends not to believe you if you retract it or say you were mistaken,” the spokesperson said. “Hertz’s continued good relationship with law enforcement is important.” [0] It seems like there is plenty of intent there. The intent to continue lieing to police to protect Hertz's reputation at severe cost to Hertz's victims. [0] https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2022/04/11/hertz-stolen-cars-false-arrests/9515487002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2022/04/11/hertz-stolen...
      - SpelingBeeChamp 4y ago
        I just searched the Philadelphia Inquirer website for that phrase and was unable to find anything. I also searched Google for the phrase, both with and without quotes, and with/without the words “Philadelphia Inquirer,” and I haven’t found the original source. Are you able to find the source of that quote? It’s so outrageous, and is so not something that a corporate spokesperson would say, that I wonder if it’s somehow been taken out of context. Or if it even happened.
        shkkmo 4y ago
        I doubt USA Today made that quote up, since it would open them to significant defamation liability. While I can't find an article with that exact quote, this article is from the right time period and does paraphrase a very similar sentiment as coming from Hertz: https://www.inquirer.com/business/retail/hertz-stolen-car-grand-theft-auto-malofiy-bankruptcy-lawsuit-20200803.html https://www.inquirer.com/business/retail/hertz-stolen-car-gr... > Hertz has no mechanism to withdraw a criminal referral because, the company spokesperson said, it has to maintain a relationship of “integrity and responsibility” with law enforcement
- HarryHirsch 4y ago
  That's an assertion of belief, not a statement of fact. It's plainly visible that current policies have led to a rash of false police reports (the 168 MUSD judgement is more than sufficient proof), and there is no need why society should put up with the carelessness of Hertz. The problem is pervasive enough to go beyond isolated cases (after all they were slapped with an 8-digit civil fine). Civil law deals with damages to individuals, and criminal law sets expectations for society to prevent trouble. Hertz's incompetence has reached criminal levels, and anyone who rolls out intent as a defense needs to examine himself it that's desirable. (Speeders, drunk drivers and violently abusive parents rarely intend to kill people but we still have laws on the books to treat such cases adequately.)
  - shkkmo 4y ago
    > the 168 MUSD judgement is more than sufficient proof This is a settlement, not a judgement.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- halpmeh 4y ago
  People should also be punished for gross negligence. Hertz filed hundreds of false police reports. After the first few, they should have updated their system. The fact that they allowed the continual filing of false police reports is a willful disregard for the safety of others.
- z3c0 4y ago
  What you're describing is "culpability" and it most certainly does get considered separately from intent (mea culpa vs mens rea). Not knowing whether or not you were within the boundaries of the law is only an excuse when you reasonably couldn't have ever known, with no opportunity for due diligence. Bureaucracy is not ever going to be a legitimate excuse for not knowing if you were acting within the law, because chances are that you could have verified so with any amount of effort.
stainablesteel 4y ago
intent is one thing, neglect is another
- randcraw 4y ago
  Or depraved indifference.
- ajross 4y ago
  It is for the crime that you're discussing. Filing a false police report is criminal precisely because of intent. Needless to say, if you have a good faith belief that you report to the police[1], you should be able to do so without fear of prosecution if you're wrong! [1] And whether people like it or not, Hertz clearly thought this system worked at the time they reported the "stolen" cars; just like software developers think their buggy code works until the user reports or crash telemetry come back.
  - phpisthebest 4y ago
    The key part of the law is "know or SHOULD HAVE KNOWN" They can not claim poor record keeping and ignorance as an excuse for filing false reports, they SHOULD HAVE KNOWN, which is part of the intent standard in most jurisdictions 1, 2, even 10 reports ok... they suck. 100's of false reports, that is beyond simple clerical error it would not take much to convince a jury that intent is there. i.e they internally setup the process that lead to false reports being filed likely as a say to cut costs
    - ajross 4y ago
      That seems to be assuming facts not in evidence, though. Did Hertz decisionmakers continue operating the system after having been notified it was giving false positives? I tend to agree that sounds like criminal negligence. But nothing seems to be alleging that anywhere. Flipping it around: would you feel comfortable calling the police to report that criminal negligence? Or would you be worried about getting in trouble for a false report? The system is tilted towards non-prosecution, and for some very good reasons. No one's going to jail here.

pitaj 4y ago

Personally I'd prefer customers be directly compensated than companies just be fined or people imprisoned.

pavlov 4y ago
Why not both?
ethanbond 4y ago
Why can't they be compensated directly for the financial damages and then put the perpetrators in prison for all the damages that can't be moneyed-away?
- pitaj 4y ago
  How does imprisoning someone help the victims in any way? People have some really fucked up ideas of justice. Justice should focus first on making victims whole, then on rehabilitating the perpetrators to prevent victimization in the future. Imprisonment serves neither of those goals.
  - jonny_eh 4y ago
    > How does imprisoning someone help the victims in any way? People have some really fucked up ideas of justice. Sending people to prison for committing crimes is "fucked up"? We can quibble over which crimes deserve what sentence, but we shouldn't outright dismiss the possibility of imprisoning white collar criminals.
    - pitaj 4y ago
      > Sending people to prison for committing crimes is "fucked up"? Unironically, yes. Prison is super fucked up. Prison time barely acts as a deterrent. It doesn't reform criminals. It has high costs for taxpayers. American prisons are entirely inhumane. Even heard of prison rape? Even violent criminals shouldn't have to endure what goes down in there. With modern technology, house arrest is far better. Even for extremely violent criminals who are a existent danger, prison is not right. They should be in mental hospitals.

jimmydddd 4y ago

Agreed. The company is like yeah, we make some minor adminstrative mistakes. But the story says a woman spent 30 days in jail? Picture yourself in her shoes.

cypress66 4y ago
If somebody spent 30 days in jail because of a false report by Hertz, then it's not just hertz in the wrong. Arguably it's an even bigger failure by the judicial system.
- mtnGoat 4y ago
  Yea the judicial system always favors corporations. If you steal $100 from work you go to jail. If work shorts you $100 in pay, your gonna need to get your own lawyer. Citizens are not given the benefit of the doubt against entities that only exist on paper and don’t suffer real consequences. It’s backwards to put it lightly.
twelve40 4y ago
if something like that happened to me, i would make it my life's mission to work whatever legal means there are to hunt down every one of these "reporters". Going to jail for a fully paid rental in the States is so absurd, I can't believe it.