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As best I recall from previous times when this hit the news, Hertz's tracking was terrible, and customers had already returned the cars in question, or still had them but were paying for them.

Update: see this other comment for more examples. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32966606

These lawsuits allege that the cars were legitimately rented by customers, but Hertz screwed up the paperwork and then incorrectly reported them as stolen, and their customers suffered the consequences.

maybe it is safer income for Hertz to err on the side of "yes it is stolen" even wrongfully