Fellowes 3103201 Powershred W11C, 11-Sheet Cross-cut Paper and Credit Card Shredder with Safety Lock

It's 2026 and I'm still using this product. Great product. You do need to ensure it's properly sitting on its base to work properly.

Update 12/21… OK last update gushing over this shredder! Hubby tried to shred two thick credit cards at once and jammed the machine. I had to pry from the inside and take a plyiers to the cards and rip it out the top. The machine wasn’t working or making any noise due to the jam but the minute I got the cards free and turned it back on it went right back to the job it was designed to do! I’ve given this machine a bit of a beating and each time it performs as it should. I would highly recommend this purchase!! update: April 2021...was just loving my shredder still until I put too many bank carbons in it and it jammed. I had to tug and pull and cut at paper to get out. I managed to release the jam. shredded a couple more papers and now two days later it wont even turn on??? I really love this shredder and I did jam it. Not sure if there was a proper jam but now it doesn't work??? After I have hubby check it out I may up buying again and then being more careful. I'm going to give it 4 stars because I've only had it for 2 days. The true test to me is over time. So far I'm impressed, has lots of power, feeds quite a few sheets and feeds them quickly. The reviews about the top being very heavy are correct but I can deal with that and It is loud but it's only something you use every so often that it's not a big deal to me either. So far I would recommend I'm hoping it lasts a good long time. Had it for about a month now. Shredded a big bin of stuff easily. Very powerful. Would buy it again! 9/19...a great shredder still glad I purchased it! UPDATE: love it... It has been a year now this thing is going full speed ahead and I loved it would highly recommend. 10/21…it is still going strong, love it! I had a few jams I thought we’re close calls but managed through them, as I was reading my rambling messages above! Great by, highly recommend.

I had my previous Fellowes crosscut shredder for over 15 years before it started choking and couldn’t handle what I fed it. Maybe I should have lubed it more often. I did a post mortem and found compressed shredded paper stuck way inside the cutting wheels that I couldn’t get to until after I took it apart. I think that put too much strain on the shredding motor and it stopped working. Overall I was satisfied enough that I turned to Fellowes once again for my new one. This is pretty much the same size (about knee high) though the control placement is different. It has the normal forward/off/reverse positions and a separate lock/unlock switch. At first I wasn’t too keen on it but after having it for a few weeks, I’ve come to like it. It sounds considerably louder than my old one. I wouldn’t advise doing any late night shredding. That’s my biggest complaint. Even though it’s louder, it eats paper quickly, has a folding handle that makes it easy to remove the top, and there’s an opening along the top front edge where I can insert small trash that doesn't need shredding and also functions as a viewer to see how full the bin is. I wish that there were handles on the sides of the basket itself so that I could pick up the entire unit easily. Since the shredder is so top-heavy, I have to tilt the basket to one side so that I can place one of my hands on the bottom to pick it up. I don’t test the 11-page advertised capacity. I usually do maybe 4 to 5 sheets at a time and the ever-present junk mail. For thicker junk mail, I open it, split in half and the shredder handles it just fine. As for credit cards, I find that it eats the older plastic ones with no problem but I now have these titanium cards where I need a sheet metal cutter to get through them. There is no way that this shredder will eat that. As personal shredder I think this is great and I would easily buy it again. It’s not an office workhorse so one should not expect that. Don’t overwork it and lube it regularly and it should work well for years to come. If you’re doing a lot of shredding pay attention to how hot is and if it’s very hot give it a break and come back after it has cooled down.

Firstly, can't believe I never reviewed this but must not have since this system is letting me do so now. Bought this unit 1 yr ago, and have really enjoyed it. No cons, and the pros are: * first cross-cut shredder ever, and love it - WAY worth spending the extra money over a strip shredder * very powerful unit, motor runs like a bull even when slip up and put a couple too many sheets in it * read where can even shred credit cards so did once, and worked well * love the auto shut-off feature, and reverse works well when need it to * I do believe weight often correlates to quality, and if so this bad boy's high quality - pretty heavy, in a good, solid-feeling way * haven't used the locking feature but have tried it just to see how it works, and it does work well. If have little ones around, can leave plugged in and feel secure since it takes an adult's dexterity to unlock it, but not so difficult as to be a nuisance Now then, my favorite part: the service, very impressive. Okay, so I did have one con in that the auto shut-off feature quit working a couple of mos ago, just had never found the time to address it, just kept dealing with it. After finally trying this week their recommended trouble shooting tips, I emailed them for help, explaining that while I had purchased it just a few days over 1 yr ago, I had actually experienced the problem for longer, expecting them to potentially stand firm on a 1yr deal, like they absolutely could have and been within their rights. Well, not only did they respond quickly with some questions for me, they agreed to send me a new unit. This was probably since I had presented such an especially sound explanation, including that I rarely use it and always oil it when emptying it as they recommend, legitimacy of which was probably helped by the fact that my original Amazon invoice had both the shredder and the oil on it - am sure that helped. They earned a fan for life with that service. So stop reading and just buy it already :)

I'm addicted to shredding. I never realized what an effect this shredder would have on my life, until I ran my first bank statement through it. It was love at first shred. This was a significant purchase for me, because I really don't NEED a shredder. Sure, I've got some sensitive documents piling up and an army of very industrious (and thorough) dumpster-divers in my neighborhood, but it was really just a nice convenience, rather than something essential to my home office. So I've been taking care of it, using the lubricating oil every time the bucket's full, running the blades in reverse every once in a while, and never feeding more than 10 sheets at a time. If you don't maintain it or try to stuff magazines in the shred slot, you may not experience the same level of performance. That said, this thing has unprecedented shredding power. It's a little loud - too loud to run when people are sleeping, for example - but quieter than a vacuum cleaner. And it's quick, too. It'll suck down paper like it's going out of style. The resulting shredded paper is small enough to satisfy average security needs. Some scraps of numbers remain legible, but the amount of effort it would take to piece together a voided check out of the gigantic bucket of confetti just wouldn't be worth it. After a few months, it's never jammed, shut down, made any ugly noises, or ever failed to satisfy my shredding needs. I just need to stop printing out bank statements just so I have something to shred.

I kept going back and forth between this shredder and the more expesnive $200+ fellows shredders. I'm very happy with my choice. It is loud as other's have said in other reviews, but for the cost between this and the other fellows shredders it didn't seem like enough of a benifit for the cost. Not a shredder I would want to do boxes and boxes of paper, but this works great for everyday mail. Update: I've been using the shredder for 7 months now and it stopped working. I oiled it after every use, but did use it a few times with the 11 sheets of paper it is suppose to handle. I ended up taking it apart and the plastic nub that the screw screws into that holds the actication switch had broken. I thought about glueing it, but since it was only 7 months old I called Fellows. I spoke to a women that spoke perfect english, no idea where she was from but I could understand her! She was very friendly and asked me to try a few steps to get it to work. I did not mention that I took it apart for fear I would have voided any warranties. I knew her tests would not work, but played along. I was asked how often I oiled it and what kind of oil I used. I was also asked how often it ran when using it. I only did everyday mail so it did not run often, but it did run everyday. She told me that she would ship a new one out to me, and it should be here in 7 to 10 days. AWESOME customer server from fellows. Yes the product broke, only lasted 7 months, but the fact that they were willing to replace it with out me having to argue or complain is enough for me to buy a Fellows product again. I did rate this as 4 stars, but moving to 5 stars because of the great customer service from Fellows.

I didn't buy mine at Amazon, but rather at Staples way back in 2007 ( on sale for $29 after Katrina). I don't normally review items I didn't purchase here but since I am looking to buy another one, I felt compelled to add my two cents based on 7 years of experience with this exact model. I am a composter and therefore shred every shreddable thing there is (and then some). Tons of junk mail, cereal boxes, toilet paper & paper towel cardboards, and lots and lots of boxes. I tear them down no more than I have to and feed it to it! Believe me, I'm not merciful. I, and my entire family, have been extremely impressed with the abuse this shredder has taken! They can't believe it's still running after all these years, after all I've put it through. We've even made jokes about it being too bad they don't put one of these motors in a car, that thing would run forever! LOL I'm telling you, if they still make these like they used to in '07, you won't be disappointed! Today mine FINALLY lost some teeth on the gears or something. The motor's still going strong though! It's just remarkable! It will still shred as is, but the grinding noise distinctly says I better get a new one. Old faithful is finally wearing out. It is quite loud, but considering the job it does, I think it's to be expected. I have had some "jam" issues with it from time to time (totally my fault, I get overly eager with big piles of stuff). But the reverse works very well to get things unjammed. I've also worked it so hard that I've overheated it several times. But that usually takes at least a solid hour or more of hard core straight runtime and abuse before that happens. I wait about 2 hours and she's good to go again. So, that's MY opinion of this thing, for what it's worth. Now I'm off to get a new one. Happy shredding! PS The CD/Credit card shredder works great on this thing too! (I don't use it much because plastic contaminates my compost, but this feature does work very well)

It had been a few months since my father's shredder bit the dust, and with sensitive documents piling up it was time to get a new shredder. For the price you pay, the W-11C is a fantastic shredder that eats and eats and eats without so much as a hesitation; making short work of the large pile up of paperwork my father had been unable to shred/dispose of properly. Below I have broken the shredder review down into three crucial parts, Performance / Design / Durability ** PERFORMANCE ** The Fellowes Powershred W-11C is a monster. To start things off the shredder is rated at 190 inches per minute ( ~16 feet per minute ) which is fairly fast considering other shredders in this price range. The fast shredding rate made quick work of virtually anything it was fed and showed no hesitation on up to 6 sheets of paper. The shredder began to slow when 7+ sheets were fed into it at once so I recommend no more than 6 sheets to avoid unnecessary motor stress. When it came to inserting documents to shred, the 9" opening was perfect and the machine cared little for how the document was fed through it. Even when the paper began to crunch up against the side (which constantly jammed our old shredder) the W-11C just ate through it without jamming or slowing down. The material that comes out is "Security Level 3" Cross-Cut confetti. It looks like tiny rectangular sheets and leaves documents in such a confetti-mess that it would be a nightmare to have to piece it back together again. Overall the performance is 5 stars! The W-11C is just a beast that hungers for paper and devours almost anything fed to it! ** DESIGN** The system has a very simple but effective design which is broken into two parts. WASTEBASKET and SHREDDER SHREDDER - The guts of this monster. It accounts for most of the product weight (about 15 lbs of the 17lb shipping weight). While heavy, the product is built well having a sturdy design that lets it slip right into the wastebasket nice and snug. It includes a folding handle for when you need to lift the top of the device to make it easier to grip and lift. The opening for shredding paper is 9", which is very generous and makes feeding paper quite easy. The power switch is fairly solid but what concerns me is the "lock" switch. It is nice to have a lock out feature but the switch feels very flimsy compared to the rest of the machine. I can see the switch snapping if you forget to push down the lock button and pull. While a minor issue it could end up causing a problem if it does snap. WASTEBASKET - Nice and spacious. Offers plenty of storage for the confetti, and contains a slot in which you can feed envelopes and non shred-able material in without having to lift the heavy shredder top. The only real flaw here is that the basket is very light. The basket itself might weight one pound, while the shredder weights almost 15 pounds. This makes the overall design very "top heavy". If you want to move the "assembled" device or accidentally nudge it with your foot there is a risk of the entire thing tumbling over / becoming unstable as-is with most top heavy objects. Not a major concern but does make moving the basket and shredder a bit difficult to do as one piece. ** DURABILITY ** The W-11C is meant to take a beating. While it isn't designed for constant long term usage, it does hold up exceptionally well over time. There is very little wear-n-tear on the machine after constant use. The only flag that goes up is that the shredder does get fairly warm after constant use if you are using it on and off for around 10 minutes straight. The motor does get warm fairly quickly so I wouldn't use it longer than 5 minutes of constant use; or 10 minutes of casual shredding for risk of overheating the motor. (the W-11C has a 5 minute auto turn off anyhow; probably to avoid overheating the motor) ** OVERALL I would give this shredder 5 stars. It is a beast of a shredder that will not let you down. What few problems/flaws it might have are minor and with some care and a little caution you won't ever have a problem with the device. If you are in the market for a decent shredder that cross-cuts the W-11C is the one you want. Good Security level confetti shredding, excellent performance and a quality design. ** NOTE: For Maintenance, the W-11C calls for Non-Aerosol Vegetable Oil. However, if you only use your shredder casually the use of Vegetable oil can be a problem since it could go rancid and begin to gunk up the gears. ** NOTE: For lubrication I prefer using UNV-38036 sheets. They are basically 8.5" x 5.25" sheets of paper that you shred. Inside is a lubricant that gets all over the gears. Just shred, run the shredder for 15 seconds in reverse and you are done. No squirt bottles, no messy clean up etc.