A LOT! I worked there for 4.5 years as a sr sales Consultant and mentor. Poor pay that has not been updated in over 10 years although it is looked at annual (or so I was told). The pay of sales Consultants at carmax is a flat rate commission $160 per unit sold doesn’t matter the make model or price. Which means that if you work on a deal for weeks or even months that all you get. Also carmax has this great this thing called a 7 day return policy. Which is great for the customer but absolutely sucks for the sales consultant! Why you ask? Well if a customer decides that they don’t want it because the monthly payment is too high they don’t like the color or anything related to that the SC will LOSE their commission. After the return there’s a scrabble to try to get them into another car so you don’t lose what you have already earned. And if you have already been paid that commission guess what you have to pay it BACK to carmax putting your pay check in the negative! Also if a return happens and you aren’t at work you then have to split the deal (50/50) or run into work to try to save your pay.
Carmax also has a system of subsidy set up. Meaning if you work a number of hours in a pay period and you don’t make enough to average out what you would make as minimum wage the company pays you minimum wage according to where you live (California being the exception to this due to a state law). This is nice right, it would seem that they want to make sure that everyone is cared for as everyone has off times in sales...right? Wrong the deal with this is that you have to pay that money back to the company. It used to be that you would have one pay period to pay it back as long as it didn’t put you back into a situation that put you under that limit wage line. That is no longer the case the policy was changes and the consultants were NOT notified. This is a hard pill to swallow when you have a hard set 9-10 hr day and don’t have the option of leaving or clocking out to counter the policy. Attendance policy is another issue I saw many people fired or quit before being fired due to this policy. Many of which had unfortunate circumstances happening in their lives (sick kids, child care issues, health issues, family issues, and family member death issues). The managers would write this issues up like all the other issues of attendance and that’s just the way it is get over it. There is also a clause in the attendance policy for patterns of attendance issues. This means that if anyone feels like you are calling off or leaving early for a reason that carmax doesn’t agree with and they feel like it is a pattern then they have the right to fire you on the spot. Also not everyone is treated equally when it comes to this policy I witnessed some people being excused or extended grace because they were seen as valued and others terminated. There was no reasoning.
The miscommunication was also a big issue with sales consultants being told that standards were one thing while the standard was often times changing in the background. Departments can not or will not work with one another and it is just the way that it is.
Bonus’s are given to some departments and not to others. This is due to pay structure in some case. However the business office (ie the one that due paperwork and make sure things are legal are paid the least of any position and are treated horribly.
