Vinturi Red Wine Aerator

I wrote the following email to Vinturi support on 8/14/2019: "I just purchased a brand new Vinturi V1010 (see attachment 1) from Amazon Inc (sold and shipped by Amazon directly, not a 3rd party seller) and I have a question about it. After unpacking it, I noticed a small plastic tab intruding into the throat of the Vinturi (see attachment 2), and I was wondering if this is normal. It is actually right above one of the venturi ports in the throat, and it appears very odd to me as I would think it would interfere to some degree with the smooth flow of wine through the throat. I ran some water through the Vinturi to see if the tab would be dislodged, to no avail. Could you please respond back to me and let me know whether this plastic tab is supposed to be there, or whether this is a manufacturing defect?" I received no response. So after a week, I called them. After a long conversation and review of the photos, they told me that nothing is wrong and this plastic tab is supposed to be there. I told them that it appeared to me to me residual plastic from when the placement of one of the air vents, and if so, I would like to swap it out for another unit. I asked if they could pull a unit from their stock and please look down the throat and see if this plastic shard was present in their unit. They told me there was no need, that this is normal. Huh? OK, but this still did not seem right to me. I noticed that the device works, but drips wine out of one of the holes. I figured this was just due to my technique, and that I would eventually get the hang of it. Since then, I have noticed that the little air hole opposite where this tab is located constantly leaks wine when it is poured through. I've tried everything, and I cannot get that air vent to not leak wine down the outside of the device. The other vent is fine. This has led me to become disgusted with this device and the mess it creates, and I have resorted back to traditional decanting techniques. Well, today 7/29/2020 I was at my neighbors house and what did I see? He has a VinVinturi too! So I asked if I could look at it. Guess what? His VinVinturi DOES NOT HAVE this "normal" plastic shard sticking out into the throat of the venturi! Gee, I asked if I could try his VinVinturi out and he obliged. And guess what again? His device DOES NOT LEAK any fluid through either of the vent holes (I did it over 12 times, using the equivalent of 12 wine bottles of water). So, when I got home this afternoon, after getting over being incredibly pissed off at Vinturi and this stupid device, I took a very thin, long thin flat head screwdriver and carefully pressed on this stupid plastic tab until it broke off and was flushed out of the device. Lo and behold, my leaky VinVinturi now works just as well as my neighbors. It seems this stupid little shard of plastic was causing some interference in the venturi throat and causing wine to readily flow out of one of the vent holes. The plastic shard is gone, the problem is now gone and my VinVinturi (after more than a year) now works the way it is supposed to. I remember asking your customer support people if I should do this, and they said "no, never insert any objects into the throat of the VinVinturi." Yeah, but then again, this is the same person who told me the plastic shard seen above in photo #2 is "normal". So, am I upset about the fact that there was a manufacturing glitch in the product? No, not really. Things like this are artifacts of modern mass production techniques, although ideally it should have been caught by the factory QC department. BUT I AM VERY UPSET about how customer support was handled, specifically the incompetence and insistence of Vinturi telephone support that there is nothing wrong with your product sir" and "no, we cannot offer you an exchange because what you describe is normal". No it is NOT NORMAL and you would have most likely seen this had you taken the time to look at a VinVinturi yourself and compared your product to my photo #2. Nice product VinVinturi, but absolutely abysmal customer support in my opinion. I suggest you seriously focus your efforts on finding better customer support people, providing them with the proper training on your products, and perhaps monitoring how they perform their jobs to ensure they are representing your products and company the way you feel is appropriate. If your support person would have told me that "yes, that does not seem right" I would have asked for a return while my return window was active. Instead, I paid full price for a working product, but had to research the problem FOR YOU and repaired the customer's problem MYSELF. Wow, what a bargain.