Customer Reviews

Fellowes Powershred P-45C Shredder (3240004)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(22)

 

 

I cleaned out all of my old financial statements and needed to shred them. Sounds simple enough, right? This shredder should be able to handle say, 3 pieces of paper at a time? Nope! This shredder handled 2 at a time with complaints and I finally gave up and fed it one sheet at a time until 2 days later, it got so clogged it stopped working all together. I have been trying to clean out the cutterhead and make it work again, but no dice. The shredder is strange: it "groans" as you use it, like the motor just can't handle the paper. It also "snaps" and "pops" because as the cutter turns, the plastic top gets pushed upwards and then "snaps" and makes a big popping noise as it goes back down. I kept wondering if the plastic was going to break. The safety flap broke off when I was emptying the can, as well. This is my second shredder and I'm not a power shredder. I try to be gentle with it, I don't even put as many sheets as the manufacturer says it can handle. I let it rest (it will get very hot after about 5-10 minutes of use and stops working until it cools down), I oil it. I think this is just a shoddy shredder and I strongly recommend you simply buy from another company. I actually feel weird complaining about it but hey, it's a shredder -- it's *supposed* to shred things. I don't think I should feel like I abused it by simply asking it to do what I bought it to do.

There is nothing except the safety feature in this product that lives up to the specs given. Two sheets of copy paper max, maybe a total of 6-8 sheets (two at a time) if you are lucky. Certainly not billing statements, since they are on heavier paper. Forget about your annual file-shredding! It's supposed to do credit cards, but that's a crock.

If you want it to work longer, you can clean the head every few sheets and/or send through a sheet of paper soaked in vegetable oil occasionally. I actually did this a few times hoping I could salvage it, but it turned out to be only a romantic notion.

I complained so much after I bought this that the manufacturer had me send it back and they sent out a new one. I shouldn't have wasted my time, because the replacement works only marginally better. The main problem seems to be that the shredded paper is not completely crosscut and strips wrap around the head. I also wonder why, with such a key design flaw, this product is still on the market.

Bad from day one. Can't handle more than one or two sheets of paper at a time (though it claims six), and even then starts to jam and overheat after three minutes or so. By comparison, I had my previous shredder for seven years of near-perfect operation (had to leave it behind in a move). Strongly recommend that Fellowes simply take this product off the market.

I like the safety features in this. As a paper shredder it may not impress any one. Not worth the money. Cannot handle even four sheets of 22lb paper. 5 sheets had jammed it. Usable with a maximum of TWO sheets, even though it gets cosiderably slower!

This shredder managed to make it thru the warranty period before a total crash. Even with light usage, the shredder struggled -- but when it broke, you could see why -- this is garbage. The cutting blades are housed in a lightweight plastic housing that obvioiusly couldn't handle any load for more than a few months use.

I gave this product three stars for it's safety feature. To me safety is number one and this product does it well. However, the rest of what this product promises it fails at miserably. My wife spent all of yesterday shredding papers one at a time (two if they were thin). The machine got bound up when you tried anything over two pieces of paper, and barely handled two light weight pieces of paper (even then with only marginal success). If this machine lived up to it's billing it would have been able to to handle much more, and my wife would have been able to accomplish in two hours what ended up taking all day. There are better products on the market; please don't waste your time and money on this product. Just trying to look out for FELLOW consumers (pun intended).

The performance of this machine is terrible. Just opened it up, plugged it in, and after attempting to shred a few sheets (one at a time) experienced a colossal paper jam. Put it back in the box to return tomorrow. It would be more efficient and gratifying to scissor documents with pinking shears.

There are several advantages to purchasing this shredder; it is economically priced, it is mechanically sound, and it has excellent safety features including an auto stop and a permanent plastic cover- with no gaps - which prevents anyone from injuring themselves while the shredder is running. It runs relatively quietly and needs no maintenance. The only negative that I have experienced is the limited number of pages that can be fed into the shredder at one time, I find that the shredder is realistically limited to 3 to 4 pages, if more are fed into it, the shredder begins to bog down. All in all, after having this product for several weeks, I do believe that the shredder generally operates as intended and I recommend it to others who may be interested in purchasing a shredder.

Barely shreds one piece of paper. After almost every sheet have to hold a paper in front of the sensor (not shredding) to let it run and clear the teeth of junk from the last piece of paper. You can still read and could reassemble anything shredded by this with extreme ease.

Edit: Ok, its not so bad as I had said at first. Before I saw the Fellowes people's response I found some info about a cheap way to oil the shredder (veggie oil in an envelope) & that made a real difference (I never had the manual). Doesn't do credit cards well on one pass (not sure if its supposed to). Shredded paper is about 1/8" x 1.5", found a good tip online - put the shredded stuff in the bottom of a kitchen bag & it'll absorb juices & whatnot, making it less messy & more securely messing up your shred.

Decent videos from the Fellowes guys, thanks.

I probably have an unusually high standard for shredders since I worked with government ones that made the tiniest confetti you've ever seen, you couldn't even tell that anything had ever been on one of those minuscule pieces.

1st of all its really had to clean up the crinkled paper this thing produces. just leaves paper flakes flying all over the place and it gets stuck in the teeth. You can only shred 3 pieces of paper max. and the worst thing of all. IT JUST BROKE on me after a year or light use!! DONT EVEN think about buying this thing. Its expensive too!