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Carvana laid off 2,500 employees today via a pre-recorded message through zoom

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Re: Carvana laid off 2,500 employees today via a pre-recorded message through zoom

#11

Post by bko »

grrrrrbox wrote: post #3

How has Carvana been doing over the past year? They focused on reducing the friction in buying/selling used cars, right? I wonder if they could have suffered from the supply crunch. Last I checked, 5-year-old Corollas were pushing $20k, and a new base model is about the same price. Anecdotally, I checked Carvana and local dealers when I was looking for a car recently, because I usually buy $5k beaters and drive them…

> I wonder if they could have suffered from the supply crunch. Last I checked, 5-year-old Corollas were pushing $20k, and a new base model is about the same price.

There are no new base models available at dealerships and they're not expected any time soon. The list price hasn't caught up to the market conditions so they don't ship any base trim models. The higher trim models are available but dealerships charge 5-10k on top of list price.

Re: Carvana laid off 2,500 employees today via a pre-recorded message through zoom

#12

Post by bin_bash »

Am I weird that I would prefer being let go like this over an awkward 1:1?

Especially if it’s a day where people are being called in one by one to be told the bad news. Let me know on Zoom or hell just send an email and let me move on with my life.

Re: Carvana laid off 2,500 employees today via a pre-recorded message through zoom

#13

Post by nativeit »

Carvana is being sued by several state attorneys general over their apparently rampant habit of selling cars and then failing to provide the new owners with their title. There might have been other reasons for their decline, but I'm guessing the widely publicised illegal practices played a role.

Re: Carvana laid off 2,500 employees today via a pre-recorded message through zoom

#14

Post by weezin »

bdcravens wrote: post #7

The tweet doesn't make it clear, but are these remote or on-site employees? If remote, while cold, I don't see the issue with a remote notification.

Yeah I don't get why people think being laid off via zoom is cruel. I'd think making a remote employee come in just to be fired would be more cruel.

Re: Carvana laid off 2,500 employees today via a pre-recorded message through zoom

#15

Post by pyuser583 »

tempnow987 wrote: post #2

Note that for legal reasons many of the layoff announcements are HEAVILY scripted. It's possible that the "pre-recorded" message was a teleprompter read or something else that does not allow a lot of back and forth. There are so many causes for legal action these days the announcements in general have to be very bland. Note I forget who it was, but there was a post or short video a while back predicting exactly this…

That’s really not an excuse. Am good manager knows to give a layoff speech without creating legal liability.

The liability comes in how they select who they lay off and the actions taken prior to lay off.

This is simply laziness.

Re: Carvana laid off 2,500 employees today via a pre-recorded message through zoom

#16

Post by Nathanba »

bin_bash wrote: post #12

Am I weird that I would prefer being let go like this over an awkward 1:1? Especially if it’s a day where people are being called in one by one to be told the bad news. Let me know on Zoom or hell just send an email and let me move on with my life.

I don't think it's weird, if the business is deteriorating then getting laid off is just a financial decision. The personal choice of being the target should be up for self reflection anyway (and will be, I suspect). Maybe it helps a little if your boss adds a reason but you should really know the reason anyway.

Re: Carvana laid off 2,500 employees today via a pre-recorded message through zoom

#18

Post by krnlpnc »

This company is crooked. Bought a car through them and the 7 day “test ownership” process is flawed. It confuses the RMV and insurance companies leaving you on the hook for fees on a car you tested and didn't keep.

Plus, their certified preowned is worthless. They dropped a used car off in the same condition as they picked it up from the previous owner, and let me waste time fixing issues under their 90 day warranty.

First car shook badly during acceleration, obvious drivetrain problems. Second car did not even pass state inspection, and they already sold my trade so now I’m stuck with it?

On top of that, they took 45 days to pay off the loan on my trade-in, and underpaid it. They sneakily pulled another 10-day pay off quote 45 days after taking my trade and stiffed me out of 2 months of payments made to keep the old loan in good standing.

Absolutely horrible experience. Hope they go under completely.

Re: Carvana laid off 2,500 employees today via a pre-recorded message through zoom

#19

Post by vba616 »

nativeit wrote: post #13

Carvana is being sued by several state attorneys general over their apparently rampant habit of selling cars and then failing to provide the new owners with their title. There might have been other reasons for their decline, but I'm guessing the widely publicised illegal practices played a role.

That may be so, but the business of online used car sales seems to me like a scam on the face of it.

No matter how much they insist you can return a car you don't like, it obviously is just a manipulative way to get people to commit more, and earlier, and without negotiating, compared to the conventional method of buying a used car.

If it's a good business to be in, that's because they can sell worse cars for higher prices, and that's all. X% more in profit, systematically.

Somewhere, there were people saying "hmm, how can we brainwash people into not negotiating and settling for the first car they test drive?" Because that's been the ideal for dealers since the beginning of time.

Operational problems, if so, are the cherry on top. I suppose that unexpected falling-off of wheels happens when you start to run out of suckers.

Re: Carvana laid off 2,500 employees today via a pre-recorded message through zoom

#20

Post by olyjohn »

twalla wrote: post #10
grrrrrbox wrote: post #3

How has Carvana been doing over the past year? They focused on reducing the friction in buying/selling used cars, right? I wonder if they could have suffered from the supply crunch. Last I checked, 5-year-old Corollas were pushing $20k, and a new base model is about the same price. Anecdotally, I checked Carvana and local dealers when I was looking for a car recently, because I usually buy $5k beaters and drive them…

A friend of mine was in the market for new(used) car and was shopping offers for his old car and Carvana was the highest by a significant margin while Carmax effectively told him "thanks but we've got used vehicles coming out our ears". This was also shortly after the whole Zillow/Opendoor debacle - we started talking about how ridiculous it was that they were offering so much for a depreciating asset, plus covering…

Carvanas pricing was ridiculous. They would offer top dollar. Alue without ever really seeing the car. I think it was very heavily algorithm driven, and wasn't being watched enough by human eyes to looks for anomalies, or just to look at a car and realize that maybe they are offering too much. They have made some sellers very happy with the money they were offering for used cars, but I really think they have been overpaying for a good chunk of thier inventory.
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