CBS News Filed Objection in Court Against Hertz’s Attempts to Keep Information Secret

A months-long CBS News investigation into rental car giant Hertz, including a formal objection to Hertz’s attempt to seal court records, led to a bankruptcy court ruling that the company must make public the actual number of renters it accuses of stealing cars each year, some erroneously. The court decision was announced Wednesday, Feb. 10, after CBS News consumer investigative correspondent Anna Werner reported on CBS MORNINGS yet another allegation of false arrest, involving a Colorado man who was allegedly arrested after Hertz wrongly claimed to police that he did not return a car in Georgia, a state he says he has never visited. The report was the third in Werner’s investigation into Hertz’s false arrest claims.

Watch Werner’s CBS MORNINGS report HERE.

Watch Werner’s previous reports in the series by clicking HERE and HERE.

Hertz had filed its data under seal in the bankruptcy court, but on Wednesday, after Werner’s latest report aired, the court ordered Hertz to publicly reveal how many auto theft reports it had filed against customers, among other statistics previously kept secret. The judge’s ruling came after the CBS News legal team filed an objection, arguing that the public has a right to see that information. Two hundred and thirty people have claims under consideration in the bankruptcy court, saying they were falsely arrested for rental car thefts based on erroneous reports from Hertz.

The data ordered to be unsealed has not yet been released.

But the court decision has already generated new information. After the ruling Wednesday, Hertz issued a statement to CBS News saying, “Of the more than 25 million rental transactions by Hertz in the United States per year, 0.014% fall into the rare situation where vehicles are reported to the authorities after exhaustive attempts to reach the customer.” This morning, Werner reported that would mean the company was reporting 3,500 customers for auto thefts each year on average. The number of Hertz’s admittedly erroneous reports has not yet been revealed but is included in the judge’s unsealing order.

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