Royal VF1012mx Crosscut Paper Shredder

I purchased this Royal VF1012mx Crosscut Paper Shredder from Sam’s Club in November of 2005. February 2006 and the machine gears broke down. I brought it to one of Royals authorized service centers for repair. The repair shop ordered parts the next day.

Two weeks gone by and I called to get an update about my unit. I was told that China’s warehouse does not have the parts and there on back order. I then called the repair shop a week later as the shredder documents were piling up to get some answers, still no parts.

So now I called Royal talked to two different countries, one in India and the other in China. The India gentleman could not find the records of my shredder and the China woman took all my information down and they were to call back the next day.

One week has gone by and no calls, no parts, no shredder, no answers. I decided to check the BBB of New Jersey and see what kind of business Royals reliability was and what I found that Number of complaints processed by the BBB since the firm's BBB file was opened in August of 2004-5 was the number of complaints processed by the BBB in last 12 months: was 4.

So I emailed Royal and told them a complaint was going in on Monday this was Thursday this was my response:

Thank you for contacting us! We have received your inquiry and are assigning it to a representative. You can expect to receive a response from us within one business day.

To help track your inquiry we have generated a reference number. Your ticket code is LTK2xxxxxxxxx. Please use this code in any further communication.

One week has gone by and still no answers or shredder.

I was not until the BBB contacted them that Royal called me asking about my complaint, but it was too late.

Finally my replacement shredder arrived at the authorized service center almost two months later.

No way ever will I ever purchase a product from Royal with this outstanding customer service again.

The response from the Director of Marketing at Royal to the BBB on May 8th was “Spoke to Mr. X and replacement part has been received. Part has been installed and shredder is working”.

Apparently this company does not know what is going on inside there own department. Sad but true.

The Shredder:

The shredders paper slot where the paper will be fed is in an awkward position, it’s angled on a slant instead of a drop down opening which causes feeding the paper difficult to feed instead of a wide open drop down slot.

The motor has a tiresome sound as if the shredder is having a strenuous time to shred paper. The gears that spin the blades are made of plastic which in time will wear and tear causing repair of the unit, in which parts were out of stock to replace.

The basket fills quickly and all the paper piles up in the middle of the basket which you will have to open to spread the shredded paper around or prematurely empty the waste basket.

When empting the slide out basket it’s messy, all the overflow paper scraps fall into the cabinet of the machine which has to be tipped over to empty to replace the basket back into the shredder.

The angled shredding slot which is exactly nine inches across has trouble shredding a two and one half inch wide single sheet of paper and will not completely recognize the paper has been shredded so another piece of paper has to follow to automatically shut the unit off.

The three inch oval window does not do you much good unless you lie on the floor or have the unit high on a desk to see how much of the basket has been filled even with the one and a half inch casters installed.