I needed to throw together a sliding table for my table saw to cut some circles from a 2 x 8. (Emergency garbage can repair - the plastic wheels cracked, so I made 2 wooden ones.)
I had a scrap of maple so I cut a runner and grabbed a package of borg-bought #6 x 5/8" wood screws that I had in a drawer. I was confident that I wouldn't split the runner with the small screws so I didn't pre-drill.
The first screw went through the plywood and snugged up nicely in the maple. The second one drove down to the head and then just spun. I had to pry it out because it just spun in both directions.
When I got it out, I found this:
It sure shows how crappy these screws are, seeing that a piece of maple was able to strip the threads completely off.