Glasses Buying Cost Cutting Plan Article Discussion Area

nesssie1702

Steve_xx wrote: »

Yes, what you say may well be so, in the shorter term. This is because the online providers don't have the shop front facility to provide and maintain as well as the complex equipment required to test your eyes. You have to bear in mind that an eye test in England costs around £20, whereas in Scotland that fee is currently £37. You can see from this that the current model in England of charging just £20 for an eye examination would not be sustainable over the longer term if high street opticians were not able to recover more of the eye exam costs from the subsequent dispensings.

Eye tests in Scotland are currently free of charge to everyone

Steve_xx

nesssie1702 wrote: »

Eye tests in Scotland are currently free of charge to everyone

Ah yes but, the optician has to be paid from the NHS and that payment currently stands at £37 in Scotland.

keep_calm_and_carry_on

Just a quick warning to anyone intending to use wantglasses.co.uk:
I used them a few years back and was very happy. Consequently I went straight to them this time - MISTAKE. It has taken them over a month to tell me that one of the pairs I ordered is out of stock. I got the other pair today, only to find that the frame is totally misshapen - the arms stick out like someone with a big head has forced them on! I'm sending them straight back, but I'm pretty sure they're not going to refund without a fight.

Moral of story - don't have bad eyes!!!!! Or make sure you check company reviews BEFORE ordering.

nedmundo

Or buy glasses in person - much easier to sort out any problems.

bj_of_bristol

I purchased a pair of varifocals from Specsavers in November 2009 and have recently noticed that the lenses are coming away from the frame at the top. I can see daylight through them, there appears to be a 1 or 2 mm gap. So a couple of weeks ago I returned to specsavers and they did there best to refit them in the frames but advised that it was difficult because of the frames I had chosen (rectangular).

When I left the store I noticed that my vision through the left lense was blurred. After a further couple of days I noticed that there appeared to be what I can only describe as a finger print. No matter how often I clean the lense this will not appear. The other lense has some small scratched but no where near as many as the left one.

A couple of days ago I returned to specsavers and asked if it was possible that the finger print could be a result of the heat treatment when the refitted the lenses. The salesman was sceptical about this and said he thought it was a lot of scratches. I am very careful with my specs, clean them daily and always put them in their case when not worn. I am certain that the fingerprint type imprint was not not there before I returned them for refitting.

They have an Ultraclear scratch resistant coating and he told me that it does not protect glasses 100% and that a woman had purchased a pair a couple of days earlier and they were scratched as soon as she put them in her bag. He said I would probably need a new lense but I would have to pay for it.

Does anyone have any experience or advice with regards to scratch resistant lenses as I do not feel I should have to pay for a replacement lense.

FIL!!*_2

Hi bj of bristol, I think I can throw some light on this one for you. If the lenses are not fitting well in the frame, so much so that you can see 'daylight' through the gap, then the Opticians in question may well have heated the frame and the lenses up so that they can be fitted togther and reduce the gap. If the lenses are heated past a critical point the anti-glare coating will craze and crack and will give the appearance of a 'finger-print' on the lens! We have done it by accident in my own practice and will always replace if it happens. I'm sure Specsavers will replace the lenses in question if you argue your case. I do hope this helps?

JustRimless

bj_of_bristol wrote: »

I purchased a pair of varifocals from Specsavers in November 2009 and have recently noticed that the lenses are coming away from the frame at the top. I can see daylight through them, there appears to be a 1 or 2 mm gap. So a couple of weeks ago I returned to specsavers and they did there best to refit them in the frames but advised that it was difficult because of the frames I had chosen (rectangular).

Firstly, it sounds as if they are trying to blame a potentially bad frame/lens combination choice on you, did they advise against it at the time?

When I left the store I noticed that my vision through the left lense was blurred. After a further couple of days I noticed that there appeared to be what I can only describe as a finger print.
.......
He said I would probably need a new lense but I would have to pay for it.

Does anyone have any experience or advice with regards to scratch resistant lenses as I do not feel I should have to pay for a replacement lense.

Scratch resistant coating are exactly that, they resist scratches.
If you are sure that the lenses have been damaged while trying to rectify the ill fitting then I would politely but firmly demand that they replace at their cost.
Bear in mind that if you pay for a lens they will have profitted further for what is essentially shoddy workmanship.

JayD

millymollymandy wrote: »

I just want to say that I bought some specs from newspecs.co.uk - they arrived Saturday from Hong Kong and I am delighted with them! They are varifocal, rimless and have thin lenses with anti glare and scratch resist coating - absolutely amazing. I shall be buying another pair once the Xmas rush on my pocket is over. This was the only co. I found doing varifocals on rimless, and I must say I expected them to be terrible cheap varifocals (I had sillhouette before) but I was really surprised by the quality. Oh - cost was £70 delivered, compared to over £300 for same anywhere else, including specsavers, where my second pair would be from a range I don't even like.
hope this is useful to someone

Just came here and was interested in the recommendation but newspecs.co.uk doesn't exist anymore - as in August 2010.

baldrick45_2

Wanted to add my experience this discussion. I hadn't changed my glasses in 4 years - 3 kids meant there was always a more pressing demand for the cash and as I need the very high index lenses, I knew that I would be talking £180-£200 at any UK highstreet opticians.

Having benefited from MSUK before I looked up Martins tips and got a free Tesco eye test and recently ordered (with a fair bit of trepidation) a pair of specs from Goggles4u. They arrived on Saturday (about 10 days from I placed the order) and I have to say I'm very pleased with the result.

For £38 delivered, I got a reasonably stylish, modern looking frame and 1.71 high index lenses. Now looking at them up close, the frame isn't the finest quality product I've ever seen. Some of the plastic moulding isn't as sharp and clean as you might as you might like (can't explain it any better - up close it is just visibly not of the best quality) and a little logo on each of the legs which is etched into the plastic looks cheap rather than "classy/designer" as they no doubt intended.

All in all, I doubt if the frame will last much more than a year (2 years at the very outside) but the lenses are perfect and, from a normal distance, the combination is good enough that I have already had several comments from friends and colleagues at work about my "nice new specs".

I appreciate that UK opticians may well have given me a "better" product and obviously I get zero-aftercare with my purchase but I just couldn't afford to buy new glasses at the moment in any other way so for me its a great result. And when I have to change the specs again in 1-2 years time, I'll have the satisfaction of knowing that I'm still quids-in on any UK pricing.

"Caveat Emptor" and all that but I'm well pleased - So thanks Martin and thanks to all the Moneysavers who contribute here!

Oldbiggles

It’s not only the exorbitant price of frames that bothers many people, but also the eye test itself.
An ever increasing number of premises advertising as Opticians are staffed by what I would call, for the want of another name ‘Casual Opticians’ who travel around to different premises testing eyes. If something goes wrong you are unlikely to get to see the same person to sort it out.
I had an eye test at Vision Express several years ago, (and I wont be going back) and when I received the specs, the prescription was wrong so I returned to the shop to find that the optician I saw originally was no longer there. It took a bit of explaining and a long time waiting around but eventually another Optician conceded that the prescription was wrong and the specs were replaced. But it is far better to go to a resident Optician, where you can see the same person every time.

:cool: