Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I had really high hopes for this machine as my home is entirely dark hardwood floors and I have two cats. This machine was horrible! It does not do what it is supposed to do. If you try to steam and vacuum at the same time, it just smears hair and dirt around. I tried using the vacuum first and then going back over all of the floors with the steam mop. The vacuum does not have near enough suction and so you have to line up the center of the machine with the crumb and hold it there for a few seconds before it will pick up a crumb. There are many small particles, like litter, that it won't pick up at all, so it really shouldn't be marketed for pets. Any kind of dust-type dirt just gets pushed around in a line when vacuuming. While it does pick up hair, the vent for the suction is located low on the machine, so much of it gets blown around and it therefore takes twice as long to vacuum the hair than it should. The cord on the machine is also way too low so it is constantly under foot and runs over its own cord. Using the mop function by itself is not much better. The wheels leave lines all over the floor and the floors still appear to have a streaky residue afterwards (like it really just moved dirty water around) even when using all of the Bissell recommended water products. About 5 months in, the trigger handle on the steam mop broke and I had to take it to a local shop for repairs. Then three months after that, the machine started leaking water even when I was only using the vacuum feature. When I called this time, I had the WORST customer service experience ever! The woman started asking me to take the machine apart and troubleshoot it and never asked me what the problem was. When I said, "Don't you need to know what problem I am having?" She blew me off and told me the steps are the same no matter what. (This doesn't make any sense). She didn't listen when I did explain the issue and tried to send me to a service center again. I asked if instead of continuing to have it fixed, I could get a different machine as it is still under warranty and the performance was awful even when it wasn't broken. She said they didn't do that and got annoyed when I asked to speak to a supervisor. Instead of putting one on the phone, she came back a few minutes later and said she asked the supervisor and they could send me a new machine, but only of the same one. When I pointed out that this really didn't solve my problem because the machine had no suction even when it was new, she told me they have never had an issue with the suction on this machine, which it a total lie! I found 26 other reviews on Amazon alone that complained about the suction. This really didn't solve my problem so I said, "If you are able to send me a new $160 machine, why can't you just apply that amount to a better model and I will happily pay the difference?" Again, I was told that this was impossible and again I asked to speak to a supervisor and this time was told one wasn't available to talk to me but someone from the corporate office would call in 1-2 business days. A week later, no one had called so I called again. I was given the same story about no supervisors being available. At this point I gave up and contacted Amazon and had my money back and a prepaid shipping label within five minutes. I ordered a Shark instead and it is WAY better in both function and design. I would have given Bissell another try with a better model, but I was so disgusted with their customer service that it wasn't even worth buying another one from their company. Very disappointed.