Dollar Rent A Car demands reporters' names

On February 11 of this year, the Reader published a column about lawsuits charging that Dollar Rent A Car incentivized its employees to use fraudulent methods to push superfluous insurance on car renters.

San Diego attorneys John Mattes (former scam buster at XETV Channel 6) and Alan Mansfield are among the lawyers handling putative class-action suits against the company (a unit of Hertz) in Colorado and California.

The Florida attorney general's office "has taken a heightened interest" in its investigation of Dollar's methods, stated a special report last month in the International Business Times.

Now, says Mattes, Dollar is using questionable methods in the court fight.

"They have subpoenaed me to give them all my communications with the whistle blowers" quoted in press coverage, says Mattes. The International Business Times interviewed more than a dozen former employees, who told how the company pressured its counter workers to lie and cheat to get people to sign up for insurance they don't need.

"Worse, they are demanding all my communications with all reporters I have spoken to in the last six years. We will fight it in court."