Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Everything about this oven is sterling for the price. It bakes and broils well. It’s pretty easy to clean and not terribly noisy. We purchased one of these units in March. It worked perfectly and we were very happy with it. Then one day after only two weeks of moderate use, the main knob broke. It broke cleanly in half. This is the knob that controls both the power and the timer. You know, you twist it to the right to your desired time and it click-click-clicks back to zero and then dings to let you know your pizza is done. Very strange, we thought – must have been a defective knob. The people at HB gave me a customer control number which I then emailed to them along with my phone number and my complaint. I promptly received a call and fully expected them to obtain my mailing address for mailing the new knob to me. Not! Here’s how the conversation went: Me: “blah, blah, blah … need a new knob.” Customer Service Representative: “You are to cut the cord on the unit and forward a photo showing that the unit has been disabled and we will send out a new one.” Me: “Are you kidding, it works perfectly… Are you sure?” Customer Service Representative: “I’m sure.” Me: (thinking this is some kind of joke). “So, you want me to destroy a perfectly good oven for want of a twenty-five cent part?” Customer Service Representative: “Yes.” Now, I’m not the greenest person on the planet – greenish at best, but even I find this outrageous. I’d like to say that I staged a one-woman protest at this point but I didn’t. I cut the cord. It killed me but I cut it. I can only say in my own defense that I was desperate – only recently having decided (after the final death rattle of my full size oven) that my husband and I could get by on a counter top oven. It seemed more economical that heating up a huge oven for our small meals. I’ve also been limiting my microwave use due to all the controversy over their dangers. So I cut it. I really hate that I did. We received the new oven in about a week and half. It came in a box that could have held four of them. It took me (I’m not exaggerating) almost an hour to cut all the cardboard up and it filled my recycling bin to the top. The box was so stuffed with those packing balloons it was comical. I pulled and pulled they kept coming. I had to pop every damn one of those balloons. The knob on this oven is exactly the same as the old one. Now we have a new oven. So far, so good. The old oven sits in my garage alongside a myriad of other things that will have to make their way into a landfill when I have to ability to get them there. What is wrong with this picture? How many of these ovens and God-knows-what-else are sitting in garages and landfills? Surely there’s a better way…