False Theft Reports Lead to Dangerous Traffic Stops for Innocent Rental Car Drivers

A New Yorker just became the latest victim in a bizarre rental car nightmare, joining a wave of folks who’ve had cops point guns at them over bogus theft reports.

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Picture this: She grabbed a ride from an Avis spot on the Upper West Side back in June, cruising through Ohio when suddenly, sheriff’s deputies boxed her in. Bodycam footage snagged by NBC’s I-Team shows cops screaming at her to kill the engine and bail out—weapons out like she’s a criminal. Turns out, the system had her rental tagged as stolen.

“I’m so scared,” she said, visibly shaken after deputies figured out the mess-up. No charges, sure, but good luck shaking off that kind of trauma. “A whole process needs to change so they do not have police pulling people over for no reason,” she told NBC.

Here’s the kicker—records prove the car was wiped from the stolen vehicle database months before the stop. Somewhere along the line, agencies botched the handoff, leaving the license plate glowing red for no reason. Avis? Radio silence.

Lawyers say this isn’t some freak accident—it’s a full-blown epidemic. Daniel Whitney Jr., a Maryland attorney who’s repped at least ten wrongly accused renters, claims lazy tracking systems and jump-the-gun theft reports are to blame. “I get the sense that the priority is more so processing things quickly than processing them carefully,” Whitney said.

Hertz already coughed up $168 million in 2022 for falsely slapping cuffs on over 300 customers. Now, with fresh horror stories popping up, watchdogs are screaming for rental giants and cops to get their act together—before someone else gets a gun shoved in their face over a clerical screw-up.

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