March 12, 2007
If you are new to my Shredder problems, you probably should start with my first page on the subject.
The 1 sentence version: I got an Office Depot Ativa Shredder for Christmas. 45 calendar days later it had destroyed it's cutting head with narry a jamup. Office Depot would not help me without a receipt and being over 30 days.... Go read the rest if you care. This is now a follow up of events since then.
I put up the page, then went to the office depot site to fill out the form to say "The page is up, I hope you will contact me to discuss". No one ever called me, so I decided it was time to call the Office Depot HQ in Delray Beach Florida.
The HQ being in Delray Beach Florida doesn't exactly pop out of even the better Google searches but I found them and navigated my way through a phone menu until I got some guy who tried to route me to Ativa Warranty support. I explained to him that these things weigh 25 or 30 pounds and the warranty + RMA info all says you have to ship the whole thing. That means you're paying big box and heavy. I'm not sure how much that is, but I wasn't ready to pay it. I further explained it took 48 minutes for me to get Ativa Warranty on the phone and they weren't much help.
This guy asked if he could put me on hold for 2 to 3 minutes. I thought at this point he was going to call Ativa to try to connect me in and make something happen. 10 to 12 minutes later, I felt as though I'd been kicked back into the phone system menu. How disappointing. I pushed 0 to get someone to talk to.
A lady picked it up and asked me what I was looking for. I explained that some guy was helping me, told me I'd be on hold 2-3 minutes. After 10, I got bounced out and hit zero and here I am... Is there any way she could get me back to where I just came from? She said no... but inquired "What is it that you're needing?"
There was something about tone, professionalism and pacing that struck me... This lady is going to be able to help. I told her my story and she totally nailed it for fixing this whole problem. It was a weird mental transition from thinking I had the receptionist to discussing details and getting information that would actually get the job done. WOW to say the least.
Here's what she said to do: The store managers name where your inlaws bought the shredder is M***** D*******, their phone number is xxx-xxx-xxxx. Go there, take the shredder and explain that you talked to headquarters and M****** S******* Authorizes the exchange. If they have any problems with doing that, have them call headquarters at 561-438-4800 to confirm. They may also need to call that number to do a Receipt Lookup.
That was Friday afternoon. I wouldn't be able to do this until Monday on the way home from work. This is getting wordy, so let me show you the new shredder and explain my store experience and a bit of wrapup at the other end.
Here's the new one. 20 sheet Cross Cut (as opposed to diamond) Heavy Duty Shredder. As of 3/12/07 this is $250 at office depot with $150 instant savings = $99.99 + tax out the door. More about the exchange details below.
After having some time in on the diamond thing and looking at these cutters, they sure seem a lot heavier.
The box says this will eat small paperclips, but I'd be hesitant to put any paperclip through here.. Staples, sure, but not paperclips. 20 sheets at a time... I dunno.. that's a lot... 10 or so.. I suppose.. After the last one imploded, I think you gotta drive this tank on the highway only.
There are some shredding bits left over. I'm not sure if this is part of QA or if I got a used shredder. At this point, give them the benefit of the doubt and pretend it was new.
I shredded a couple sheets. It has a feed speed much slower than the diamond one, but that's no issue for us. I'm happy with the paper sizes and think it should go a while at 50% capacity (10 sheets or less).
This is the part that boggles my mind. 1 Year warranty on the whole thing, 7 years on the cutter. If the cutter makes it 7 years, it's good for a lifetime I would guess. Otherwise, I think we're in a forever cycle of swapping them out at some point along the way. We will see, I'm keeping the receipt and box and everything this time.
Ok, now for today's store experience.
I walk in and meet the cashier and told her that I needed to exchange the shredder, got it for Christmas, broke Feb 8, been trying to get it exchanged since. She started in with the whole "Ativa will handle it" story. When I got a chance, I further explained that I'd been in touch with Office Depot HQ in Delray Beach, they told me to talk to MD the store manager and if there were any problems, they could confirm with HQ by calling GS at the number previously mentioned.
Without confirming any of that with anyone, she said she could exchange it. What are the options here? Does the cashier get this as part of standard training and I hit on all the key words to get an exchange? Or, is it the other end of the spectrum and I could have said anything that sounded somewhat official? At this point, I don't care, I asked her where are the shredders?
5 minutes later, I come back and tell the guy that is now at the register that there are none in the box like the one I had. Can I go for another model (in my mind figuring that about $99 was paid for the old one, and today this new one is marked down by $150 to $99.99) and I should get an even swap or close to.
Since I didn't have the receipt, the old one rings up today at 69.99, the new one at 99.99... So, I forked over $30 + tax to get out the door with this one. The last piece of the puzzle will be to contact the number mentioned above to try that receipt lookup to see if they paid over $69.99. If they paid more, I should get the difference back, or they can get the difference back to their CC.
The upside from here would be that I have a shredder that will go for 10 years or for a very very long time.
The downside (as culled from talking with various people) is that nobody I've talked to can believe I went to all of this, and even more... no one can believe I got anywhere with it, especially to the point of dropping off the bad shredder and having walked away with a new one. "I would never think to do any of that", and "I can't believe you did all that.", and "I couldn't have done all that." are common responses.
Would I recommend anyone to buy any of this stuff? Definitely not the crosscut shredders. I have mixed feelings about this 20 page one. Why is this on sale for $150 off of the $250 original tag? Why none of the 12 page diamond cut shredders in stock (strong sales, or purposeful non-restock?) Is Office Depot dumping the Ativa brand, or the Shredder line because of these problems? Look back in a couple months to see if these things are still around I guess.
I have a new shredder tonight, so I feel like I am somewhere with this whole thing, but don't think I'd go there and buy more stuff. That lady in Delray Beach who told me what to say and that I'd be able to exchange it was the one bright spot in the whole mess. The rest was like seeing a football team repeatedly fumble the ball time after time after time while getting farther and farther from the goal.
I guess stay tuned, if this thing breaks, you'll see it here somewhere.
If anyone wants more of the details to help with getting your own problems resolved such as who the names are with the ***** in them above, email me at daron@daronspicher.com and I'll try to help you out. Otherwise, I didn't want to put that detail out in the wind of the internet.