Consumer rights on spectacle lenses from opticians

jim_bob_uk

Hi everyone.

I just wanted to know what consumer rights you have upon buying lenses for glasses from an opticians on a credit card?

This is a little complicated, but to take advantage of the promotion that Tescos had going my girlfriend ended up buying 2 pairs of glasses from them earlier this year. The intention was always to then take a pair of those glasses and have proper (thinner) lenses added by a more respectable opticians.

She went to a local opticians to have an eye test, took this prescription to Tescos to get the glasses made out with the correct prescription.

On getting the 2 pairs of glasses from Tescos she went back to the original eyetesting opticians and proceeded to order the lenses she wanted added to one of the frames.

2 weeks ago she finally got her glasses back. There was more of a delay as the first time the glasses came back from their suppliers they'd fitted the wrong prescription!!

She realised during fitting of the glasses that she didn't really feel comfortable with the glasses as they were, but decided to try and see if her eyes would adjust to the prescription. A few hours later though it was clear to her that something wasn't right. One eye felt imbalanced to the other, distortions seemed to be a problem and just in general she wasn't happy. She suffers from migraines and so anything vision related is a real problem.

We went back to the opticians last week to inform them that something was wrong. With the fact that the prescription was potentially incorrect, and the mixup from the suppliers with the wrong prescription we were starting to lose confidence in their ability to get us a good pair of glasses. As such with these glasses, or more importantly these lenses and prescription being "not fit for purpose", we really just wanted to try and get her money back so that we could then try to maybe also get money back on the original 2 pairs of glasses from Tescos too and just start again. It's become clear with the prescription lens weight that the frames are too heavy and uncomfortable so we really want to try to start again, but doing so we must first get the opticians to refund us for the lenses that aren't working correctly.

Unfortunately the opticians were not receptive to this and stated they don't offer refunds, and that we must see the optician again for a reassessment. Their statement was that they will make the lenses work, and that they wont offer refunds. We have another appointment to be reassessed and perhaps there'd be an option for us to move to another frame with them. But to be honest as this gets more frustrating you really lose the desire to continue working with these opticians.

What are our consumer rights on this matter. We never signed anything that agreed to the purchase not being refundable (to my knowledge). I expected that having made the purchase using a credit card that they may be able to help us. It's a case of the product (the lenses) and the company (the opticians, and the fact the prescription was so incorrect) being "not fit for purpose" or rather at least not someone we want to continue dealing with or giving more money to.

As a consumer surely we have some protection to not be bullied out of our money on this transaction?

If anyone can help on this, we'd really appreciate it.

Cheers!

Bantex_2

Why not just get the lenses from Tesco as well as the frames?

System

Didn't she check the glasses that she got from Tesco's. At that point she should have realised the prescription was wrong and dealt with it then rather than go ahead and get further lenses made with an untested prescription.

rustyboy21

She is most likely not looking through the lens at the correct place, lenses do have differing power in certain areas. The prescription is mainly based in the central part of the lens.


It may only need the nose pieces moving up or down, or even the arms adjusting, for them to be perfect.


Let the Optician at least try. Wore glasses for 40 + years and have experienced this, it can be sorted.


The thin lenses will only be heavier, fi they are glass lenses, instead of Perspex. Have been there and got the T shirt. You can get ultra thin high index plastic lenses too.

jim_bob_uk

We really regret not buying everything from the same place. This clearly has weakened our position, the optician almost said as much. The thing was that it was the same price + £20 for 2 pairs of frames as what the other optician would have charged us for a single pair so to me it seemed a no brainer.

We didn't really fancy getting everything from Tescos as they just didn't seem like they were going to do a thorough job, the way they tested the glasses for fit when they arrived in Tescos was a bit of a joke.

She didn't really try them on much after receiving them from Tescos. They weren't thinned at all and my girlfriend reckons she can never see well through unthinned lenses. I've done research online which says that unthinned lenses are actually technically the best optically as all thinned lenses have compromises on image quality to get down to the thinner size.

Obviously we regret this now, but she's had bad experiences with non-thinned lenses before so she never even wanted to try it out much. They're obviously heavier and yes heaviness and comfort is a problem, but the main problem is one of what her vision is like in both eyes with those new lenses.

Ironically the other pair of tescos glasses actually feels less bad optically than the properly paid for thinned lenses from the other opticians. Now obviously as i said there are aspects that could be different between thinned and non-thinned but it almost feels like again they maybe haven't even given her the right prescription in one eye.

All of this adds up to getting to a point where we just want to perhaps stop dealing with this opticians and try somewhere else again at some point. But I just don't know if we have any rights to expect to be able to do this.

We paid for prescription and lenses. She can't see through the lenses properly and we start to question whether the opticians, and/or their lab is competent. Surely there has to be some protection as a consumer, and especially as a consumer having purchased on a credit card?

Thanks for your replies

jim_bob_uk

Vision-wise it just feels like one eye's prescription is out. As i said its worse in the new pair than the original pair from Tescos.

I know what you mean about looking through the lens at different angles but I think she commented on this when getting the prescription at the time (which the opticians took a long time doing, we thought it boded well he'd been so thorough). I believe she said it felt off in one eye to the guy, to which he said it would be different with real glasses and that it would settle down. She tried for 2 days, but in the end went back to her older glasses.

It's all regret and of course if required we'll work with the opticians at perhaps trying again with new lenses/prescription.. perhaps hopefully switching to smaller/lighter frames at the same time. But if at all possible I think we'd prefer to just back out of it and start again somewhere else.

It doesn't seem like you guys think this is even possible? As in the opticians is well within their rights to refuse to refund us and that the credit card company will be unlikely to help with that.

Hintza

jim_bob_uk wrote: »

we could then try to maybe also get money back on the original 2 pairs of glasses from Tescos too

Why would Tesco give you any money back, there appears to be nothing wrong with your glasses from Tesco?

jim_bob_uk

I believe Tescos may give money back due to not liking the frames with the lenses in versus the feel of the frames in the shop. All the frames in shops have such light frames in its very hard to assess comfort as your prescription causes your own lenses to get heavier. Regardless being Tescos, we'd give it a try if we could get to that point and see what happens.

To be honest we're not that hopeful of getting a refund from Tescos, but haven't even tried yet as unless we can get a refund from the other opticians we don't really have the 2 frames + lenses to return to Tescos anyways.

There's a lesson here, learnt hard. There's a fair amount of "I told you so" going on as my girlfriend didn't want to go down this split route of two opticians.

At the moment though, its just the odd scenario of an opticians put some lenses in some glasses frames for us, and its just these lenses that we'd like to try and get a refund on. The majority of the cost was on these new lenses, even versus the two pairs of glasses with lenses from Tescos!

Cheers

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

OP, I would take the girlfriend back.

Worn glasses for 45 yaers

Geodark

jim_bob_uk wrote: »

I believe Tescos may give money back due to not liking the frames with the lenses in versus the feel of the frames in the shop. All the frames in shops have such light frames in its very hard to assess comfort as your prescription causes your own lenses to get heavier. Regardless being Tescos, we'd give it a try if we could get to that point and see what happens.

To be honest we're not that hopeful of getting a refund from Tescos, but haven't even tried yet as unless we can get a refund from the other opticians we don't really have the 2 frames + lenses to return to Tescos anyways.

There's a lesson here, learnt hard. There's a fair amount of "I told you so" going on as my girlfriend didn't want to go down this split route of two opticians.

At the moment though, its just the odd scenario of an opticians put some lenses in some glasses frames for us, and its just these lenses that we'd like to try and get a refund on. The majority of the cost was on these new lenses, even versus the two pairs of glasses with lenses from Tescos!

Cheers

Sorry fella, but I still can't work out why tesco would, or even should give you a refund. What exactly have they done wrong? Did your GF not try them on before ordering them? It sounds more like she picked frames and has now decided they are too heavy and doesnt want them - the time for sorting this out is before she buys them and not before.

SuperHan

You were probably right to get the prescription done by a 'more reputable' optician... But getting lenses from them was just silly.

If they are saying they have made lenses to the right prescription, the they have obviously misprescribed if they are not right. Ask for another eye test to make sure that they have actually got the prescription right.

The opticians should provide you with lenses that are made up to the right prescription. If these are too heavy for the frame, that is not their fault, they have given you what you paid for. You aren't really entitled to a refund, they should just rectify the problem in that the lenses aren't right for your OH's eyes.

From a quick Google search, you are not going to get a refund from Tesco. It appears they have a policy that glasses can be refunded up to 1 hour from purchase, and you cannot leave store in that hour. They will only then refund if the lenses were not made up correctly by them (i.e. to the wrong prescription). As you say the Tesco lenses aren't too bad, then it's unlikely that this will be a reason to refund.

The best bet seems to be just to write off the new lenses, ask them to put the Tesco lenses back in, and call the costs of the new lenses as a lesson learnt to get glasses from one provider in future!