Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Short Review: Poor quality, seems like playing russian roulette to see whether you will get a good Pendaflex product or a terrible quality one. Long Review: It took a lot of online research for me to find out and get to the bottom of this. If you go to Pendaflex's wikipedia page you'll be able to learn a little bit about their corporate history and how the used to be owned by Esselte Corporation. However, the most recent turn of events for them, having been bought by TOPS Products in March of 2014 is only readily apparent if you go to pendaflex's website and to TOPS products own website. This is even more confusing when the Amazon seller known as "Pendaflex" sells different products it has manufactured across it's different owners. In the end, does this matter? Yes, a whole heck of a lot. I got 2 boxes of basic green hanging folders (model # 81602) and 1 box of the 4-color assorted hanging folders (model # 75708), of the EXACT SAME PRODUCT (Pendaflex Essentials Hanging Folders, Letter sized), and the quality between the two couldn't have been more night and day different. The green folders were manufactured in 2011, back when they were owned by Esselte Corporation, and were flimsy, rough, very poor quality stock, the holes where the tabs go started to get ripped on my very first attempt to put a tab in, one of the boxes had the hanging bars bent in about half of the folders. As soon as I opened the box I couldn't believe my eyes. I had an old box of the exact same product that I had bought many years ago (manufactured in 2004) and the folders in that old box were amazing quality, sturdy, smooth, strong. These new folders say made of up to 10% recycled material but it felt as if they had made the folder out of those 6 grade science experiments where you take newspaper, dip it in glue and water, put the newspaper around an inflated balloon and let the newspaper dry and after two days it hardens into something that more or less resembles the intended shape but feels like, well, soiled paper: it would entertain a 6 year old but as a product I intend to put important files in I need something that doesn't come apart by breathing on it (or putting in my very first tab!). How could product quality have declined so much in 7 years? Then the other box (the assorted 4 color model # 75708) was manufactured in 2014, with Pendaflex being owned by TOPS Products (you can see it right on the box). I would give that box a 3-4 star rating. If it hadn't arrived in the same shipment as these horrible green hanging folders, maybe a 4. They were still not as good as my box of 2004 Pendaflex hanging folders, but at least seem like they will get the job done. I already chose to return the 2 green boxes and am keeping the assorted ones. Here's where Amazon is dropping the ball. How can they allow for a seller to pass off this wide array of products as being the same item? The two boxes even have Pendaflex with similar writing but DIFFERENT LOGOS. This is an Amazon Prime product so do they just have a lot of old inventory in their warehouses that they need to get rid of? This is **COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE** of both the seller (Pendaflex) and Amazon. That is why I am giving the product 1 star, for the deception to the consumer when you won't know what you are going to get, an OK, 3-4 star product, or something that resembles recycled newspaper.