Thread: Opticians damaged my glasses

Hello

Early December 2008 I took a new pair of spectacles that I had purchased in Germany into my local Opticians to have readjusted. The assistant was struggling with this task and in the process, scratched one of the lenses with metal pliers. The Optician agreed to replace the scratched lens, however when the spectacles came back 2 weeks later I refused to accept them because the replacement lens was of a notable different thickness from the other, my lenses were 1.6 and they had used a thicker size. Now I would have thought a bit of common sense would have prevailed here with the optical trained staff and that this would have been noted and queried, however the optician agreed to replace the lens with the correct thickness to match the other.

We had the delays of Christmas and in the first week of January after doing some research into the thickness of my lenses I handed this information into the optician. A week later I phoned the shop requesting to speak to the Manager to clarify that she had received the information on the thickness of my lenses and was told my spectacles hadn’t even been sent off as the Manager was off sick, I had to wait a further week and a half for her to return and a further 2 weeks for the spectacles to come back. I picked up my spectacles which appeared to be refitted with the correct lens thickness, in the shop they appeared to be fine, however when I put the spectacles on at home my husband and everyone else noted that the replacement lends was of a different colour, I also noted that there was a scratch on the bridge of the frame. This is unbelievable, where is their quality control and again one has to ask, the Technician who is fitting theses spectacles doe he/she not queries this, do you really think anyone would walk around with 2 lenses of different colours, did they really think that this would be acceptable.

During this fiasco luckily I had an old pair of spectacles to wear in the interim. These were of a slightly different prescription and gave me headaches, they also had star cracks on the lenses and eventually the lenses broke way from the frame in two pieces and I had to resort to wearing daily moist contact lenses. The contact lenses also gave me headaches as I only ever wear these for special occasions, holidays etc and not everyday use sitting in front of a computer. I mentioned to the Manager that whilst waiting for my spectacles I had used 30 pairs of contact lenses and would like them replaced. I was shocked by her response, she said that since I had not originally purchases the contact lenses from the opticians they could not replace them, she then offered me 5 replacements which was increased to 10, then she said that she could order me a further 10 but could not replace the 30 in total. I could not believe that this optician who had keep me waiting for over 8 weeks without spectacles were trying to barter the replacement contact lenses.

I have been a customer of this optician for 25years and have always purchase my spectacles from them apart from on this one occasion. I used to purchase my contact lenses from them also, but a couple of years ago they were unable to accommodate me for a contact lens examination, I had a wedding coming up and needed the contact lenses in time for this occasion.

I returned my spectacles to the optician and asked for a full refund of their cost €469.80, I enclosed the receipt. I have had enough, I am still without spectacles which I need to use for work, watching TV and driving. I have given the optician ample time and opportunity to resolve this matter which they seem unable to do.

Where do I stand legally.

thanks any comment appreciated

Hi Puster, as an optician myself I may be able to help you here. It sounds like your glasses have anti-reflective (MAR) coating on them. Different manufacturers use different coatings, they usaly range from a greeny petrol to a pinky metholated spirit kind of colour when viewed at an angle to a light.
The DO / Manager should have known this and replaced both lenses.

With regards to you having hi-index 1.6 lenses, unfortunately there is no way of telling if the lens is 1.5, 1.6, 1.67 etc just from looking at it. And as different frames give different edge thicknesses to the same prescription some of it is just guesswork, which it would appear they have got wrong in this instance.

I would suggest you contact the Optical Consumer Complaints service if you have no luck with the Optician yourself. They have a website here;

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Personally I never make repairs or adjustments on another firms frames, as this is usualy what happens!