Tolen was leaving a contracting gig when he said the officers had their guns drawn as they ordered him to exit the vehicle, lift his shirt to show he was not in possession of a weapon, and slowly make his way towards them during the traffic stop. Officers handcuffed Tolen and explained he had been pulled over because the car was listed as stolen he was perplexed. He said officers quickly saw him as a “felon” but that perception changed when Tolen showed the officers his rental agreement that listed him as an authorized driver.

“That’s when I heard officers telling them [Hertz] ‘Do you know what you guys put this guy through? He’s here for a stolen vehicle, his contract is valid, we’re going to give him back the vehicle, and you guys need to get a better system,” he explained.

In Delaware, Hanna “John” Ayoub says his 2019 long-term vehicle rental with the company turned into a nightmare that cost him everything. Ayoub made weekly payments of $300 to extend his truck rental, each time he saw the funds deducted from his account and received Hertz confirmation of his rental being in good standing.

However, he was dumbfounded when Hertz notified him that he was no longer an authorized driver, one day after confirming his third rental extension. A month later he was arrested and charged with car theft in Delaware and New Jersey. He would be in jail for the next three months.

“They [Hertz] said that they had no record of the extension on the vehicle despite speaking to them a day before and receiving confirmation,” he told the Delaware Online.

“Everything just turned into a nightmare from that point onward. I lost everything, my life, my reputation, everything.” The case was later dismissed after review of bank statements, rental agreements, and Ayoub’s recordings of his calls to extend the rental each week. Hertz, however, is standing by its stolen car reports, stating: “The vast majority of these cases involve renters who were many weeks or even months overdue returning vehicles and who stopped communicating with us well beyond the scheduled due date.”