Laser Eye Surgery - Deposit Refund

Wlodus

All

Long story short: I have cancelled a LASIK laser eye surgery with Optical Express after cooling off period (72hrs) after finding out that my surgery qualifying examination was not carried out by them with reasonable care and skill and critical information that would have affected my decision was withheld. They obviously now do not want to return my deposit (£400). I do not dispute that I confirmed I understood the deposit was not refundable after 72hrs from making a booking, but I believe Optical Express have not done their job right, so should any agreements made on the day of examination be considered as legally binding?

Here is my full story.

I attended a free consultation appointment at Optical Express clinic in Coventry in November 2013. The examination suggested that LASIK surgery would be suitable and this was booked in December in Birmingham.

On the examination day my prescription was found to be higher (I believe by -0.5 in both eyes) than my current contact lenses prescription. This surprised me as I have not been experiencing any degradation in my eyesight. Therefore, I felt I should book an appointment to double check this and I managed to get an appointment at the opticians I usually go. This examination showed that my eye prescription has not changed at all for either glasses or contact lenses as compared to my last prescription.

Moreover, during the examination at Optical Express I explained that the reason I was investigating surgery was because I cannot wear contact lenses for long without experiencing dry eyes. During my examination at Optical Express I was given no reason to believe that this could be an additional risk factor should I opt for corrective eye surgery. I have discovered since that this may represent an increased risk of suffering dry eye following corrective eye surgery and therefore, when I found that my opticians’ examination did not confirm the change of prescription identified by Optical Express optometrist, I asked to have my existing concerns around dry eye checked in detail. The examination revealed that I have blocked meibomian glands, which although I had mentioned my current concerns was not identified during my examination at Optical Express. Having become concerned about this, I have checked various medical articles which have given me the impression that eye surgery should not be carried out if you experience problems with dry eyes.

During my consultation I also explained that I train in mixed martial arts, which is a highly contact sport. I wanted to fully understand the risks associated with the combination of LASIK eye surgery and contact sports and the potential dislocation of the “flaps” created during this type of surgery. I was told that the LASIK method would still be appropriate. However, the optometrist examining me needed to check this with "a senior optometrist" since she was not 100% confident. I was somewhat confused by this because I was told when booking my appointment that I would be examined by a senior optometrist. It occurs to me now that lady examining me was not a senior optometrist, though I had been led to expect that this would be the case.

Moreover, on the day of the examination I was also not given full information that would have affected my decision to make an informed consent: this includes treatment Optical Express success rates, retreatment statistics, statistics for probability of starbursts, halo effects, night time distortion, dry eyes etc.; current investigations by the General Medical Council into their surgeons, numerous legal claims, the numbers of damaged patients etc.

As a result of all of the above, I have lost confidence in Optical Express and have decided not to proceed with the operation booked in December. Above all I was seriously concerned that should I proceed, the health of my eyes may be jeopardised by what appears to me to be a poor quality of diagnosis. I have requested that a full refund of my deposit (£400 paid by debit card) be sent to my bank account; however after speaking to their customer service team I have only found out that deposit will not be refunded. I have written a formal compliant to their CEO, but I have not heard anything back.

Can you please advise what can I do to get my deposit back? As a last resort I will go to a small claim court, but I would like to avoid this if possible.

Any help will be truly appreciated.

Cheers
W.

Scrootum

Why did you not check everything before paying the deposit?

Wlodus

Fair comment Scrootum. I thought I have checked all, but I was too overexcited by the fact I can see without glasses/contacts, that I did not really read the small print properly

wealdroam

Have you read this post on the READ ME FIRST thread:

Is a deposit ever refundable?

Wlodus

Thanks wealdroam, there is useful info in this post. Sorry, I really should have read this post first

unholyangel

Do you have any type of report from someone qualified that backs up what you're saying?

The specialist who said it would cause problems/you're at higher risk.....did they detail how much higher that risk was?

Wlodus

Thanks for your reply Unholyangel. I have found a number of medical articles and investigations that prove some of my claims. I have found out that any dry eye issues (like my problems with meibomian glands discovered by an optometrist at other optical service) should be treated before the surgery as may cause post-operation symptoms worse. I have found the ‘real’ statistics concerning post lasik symptoms, including 20% of patients experiencing to some extent permanent dry eyes and having some sort of night time driving distortion. During the examination they only mentioned temporary symptoms lasting several weeks. There are dedicated websites that concerns eye surgeries where there are many medical reports.
There is even one dedicated to Optical Express where hundreds of people have expressed their fury because Optical Express ruined their life.

I am currently speaking to campaigners for introduction of proper regulation of laser surgery industry in the UK and they said that if I go to court they can provide me with a lot of information to support my claims.

Even MP John McDonnell mentioned concerns over the quality of patient assessment at Optical Express in the House of Commons on 20/11/13.

Geodark

Hi Wlodus, strangely enough I used to do MMA myself and have had eye surgery. I didnt use optical express, but when I got my initial assessment I told the company that I used that I did MMA and the first thing they said was that I could only have LASEK and not LASIK due to this. They also detailed all the risks and complications involved before they even gave me an eye test. Not sure if this is of any help, although it does sort of back up what you already thought about Optical Express

bod1467

OE only care about sales and profit ... care for the actual customer comes a long way behind. (Is my reading of their business practices).