New Hampshire person arrested aboard cruise ship is most current to be accused of stealing Hertz rental motor vehicle: “Most horrific expertise of my daily life”

A Hertz consumer who was arrested aboard a cruise ship final 7 days has come to be the hottest client to say the corporation falsely accused them of thieving 1 of its rental autos.

Charles Doucette, a pharmacy and health care advisor from New Hampshire, said he was on a Caribbean cruise with his girlfriend when, back in a Florida port early Friday morning, law enforcement arrived to the door while the couple was sleeping.

“We opened it and it was security for the boat,” he reported. “Customs and Border arrived onto the boat and told me to change around, face the wall with my fingers driving my back.”

Doucette described the incident even though sitting down in Florida’s Brevard County Jail, where by he remained Tuesday.

“This is the most horrific knowledge of my everyday living,” he advised CBS News’ purchaser investigative correspondent Anna Werner in a mobile phone job interview.

Doucette is just the newest person declaring Hertz filed a wrong police report against them. Individual bankruptcy court docket paperwork unsealed last week, soon after CBS Information intervened in court, demonstrate the corporation submitting hundreds of law enforcement reviews just about every yr, roughly 8,000 every single calendar year for 4 a long time.

Of those people, files from claimants say nearly 3,500 ended up submitted towards consumers for what is named “theft by conversion”, “…that include a renter who lawfully rented from Hertz…” “…and for which Hertz has payment information and facts on file.”

Doucette suggests he experienced rented a vehicle from Hertz for his company previous 12 months, and adequately extended the rental quite a few occasions. But in March, police in Arizona stopped him and advised him Hertz had submitted a police report saying his rental car had been stolen. They towed the automobile, but Doucette states afterwards, Hertz charged his credit history card the entire quantity for the rental.

Nevertheless in August, prosecutors who say they ended up acting on Hertz’s police report, took his scenario to a grand jury and indicted him. 

Dealing with a demanded courtroom visual appearance in Arizona, Doucette said, he contacted a area legal professional there and sent notarized documents so he wouldn’t have to surface in person. It’s not obvious what occurred in the local court docket, but he was arrested Friday.

“I am one of their finest buyers. And in this article I am sitting in jail,” Doucette claimed. 

“It really is just wholly absurd that any organization would enable something to have an affect on somebody’s lifestyle,” he explained.

Doucette said he is been an elite President’s Circle member who expended about $15,000 with Hertz in 2020 and 2021.

“I am sitting down in this article for 3 days. Notify me that you are treating your consumers correct,” Doucette stated.

His girlfriend of 18 a long time, who did not want to be determined due to the fact of her occupation, stated he is not undertaking perfectly “at all.”

“I just want him residence,” she said. “I just want answers, so that we can decide on up the items and move on.” 

Hertz explained in a assertion that “cases exactly where motor vehicles are documented to the authorities are incredibly unusual and transpire only just after exhaustive makes an attempt to achieve the purchaser.” The enterprise did not respond to inquiries about Doucette’s scenario.

Attorney Francis Alexander Malofiy signifies Doucette and other claimants.  

“Hertz refuses to proper a law enforcement report when they’ve figured out payments [were] manufactured, when they’ve figured out the car’s been returned or when they’ve learned there is certainly inaccuracies,” he mentioned.

Malofiy despatched a letter to the organization around the weekend, asking Hertz to enable get Doucette out of jail. He reported unless a little something alterations, Doucette will be in jail for a minimum amount of 10 times since he is awaiting extradition to Arizona.

“I often assumed that [the] earth we dwell in is, ‘innocent right until proven responsible,'” Doucette explained. “This is, ‘guilty right until verified innocent.'”