Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I definitely should have looked closer at the negative reviews. Someone correctly pointed out these scales LOOK like the scales you used to see in gyms and doctor's offices. But they don't come even remotely close to the same quality. The item, as described at the Health O Meter web site, is nowhere close to what you'll receive. They provide information on a scale that is no longer being manufactured. Here's what the description says: "Hardened steel pivots and bearings; heavy-gauge enameled steel base and upright. The base alone weights over 21 lbs. The entire unit weighs 50 lbs." 50 lbs? Heavy gauge steel? Not the scale I got. The box the scale came in said the weight of the scale was 29.7 lbs. I put it on a bathroom scale and it was in fact just over 29 lbs. So they've shaved off around 20 lbs from the current model. There's no longer any heavy gauge steel on these scales. As another reviewer pointed out, the scale numbers you read are on a plastic strip glued on rather than permanently etched onto the bars. On both ends of those strips they were already lifting. Mine was to be in the bathroom where the humidity is regularly higher. It wouldn't have been more than a week before those strips started peeling off. That alone was a deal killer for me. If you notice, all the positive reviews with the highest numbers of "helpful" votes all date back to around 2006. Back then you got a nice scale made of heavy-gauge steel, etched numbers etc. They were also still made in the US at that time. But the company was bought out sometime after 2006, production was shifted overseas and now what is being sold is completely worthless. And so you can see a growing list of negative reviews that date from 2007 on. Another thing someone pointed out is that the sliding weights don't fit firmly into grooves like the older high quality ones did. You have to fiddle with the weights to get them to stay in place. Besides being annoying, this is an issue that negatively effects accuracy. One of the most obvious signs of the poor quality of this scale is the platform you step on has a paper thin plastic "no slip" cover glued on. It's every bit as flimsy as those throw away paint roller trays you buy for .97 cents. These scales used to have a HEAVY rubber pad on the platform that would last nigh unto forever. Besides the fact that the plastic is so thin, it's also a brittle kind of plastic. That cover won't hold up to any kind of regular use. The upright post on the one I got had a twist in it from top to bottom. That can only come from the slipshod work of unskilled workers. These scales just scream "POORLY MADE JUNK" the longer you look at them. No pride of workmanship whatsoever.