I'm so stupid. Please ignore the ratings numbers I gave in my previous post. Here are the real numbers to go by.

As the title of my review says, WHAT A PIECE OF JUNK!!!

First, the good points about the shredder. I've used many very expensive shredders at my old corporate job so I have lots of experience using shredders; knowing the right and wrong habits of use. This shredder has an acceptable level of working noise; I have heard worse. The specs say no more than 6 sheets at a time. The closest I got to that was 5 and although it grunted and groaned it shredded the paper, standard weight, well enough. I love the engine on the basket and the fact that it has a safety feature that disables the motor when you lift the engine off the basket.

However, my piece of junk lasted only two sessions of shredding. I bought this sucker over a year ago at Office Depot, tried it out when I got home to make sure it really did work, and then put it aside. Today I finally got around to setting it up again to shred some stuff I had here at home. I went through about a ream's worth of old bills and stuff and then noticed that on the second dumping of the basket that a lot of shredded paper was lodged up in the casing around the cutter assembly. I thought "no prob, I'll just reverse it for a minute or so and then it will clear out and I'll be good to go." I reversed it and there as quite a racket in the engine.

When I attempted to begin shredding again the cutters did not move. The sound of the engine had changed to a smoother sound. Tried to reverse then set on auto again to shred more; still no cutter action.

Since it is out of warranty I decided to open it up to see what's wrong. Can you believe it? The main drive gear, a chintzy piece of plastic had broken almost in half.



What a piece of junk!! If you find a deal on this piece of crap for $5, don't waste your money.

Don't believe the part about shreding credit cards. I put a half dozen through and now my machine is trashed. The blades are all bent and twisted and my paper shreding leaves one long strip down the middle.