Boots opticians and mis sold specs

andygo

My wife felt her glasses that she uses for driving were not as sharp as they used to be and called Boots to make an appointment.

Off she trotted for an eye test. They told her that she needed new glasses for reading, but she told them she was happy with her reading and just wanted her distance vision correcting. They then tried to sell her varifocals, but once again, my wife reiterated she just wanted her distance vison correcting for driving. When she told the optician that her eye consultant told her not to have them due to a slight issue with a cataract, she was answered with a "pfffft', and a shrug of shoulders, the inference being that that was a ridiculous thing to say.

Anyway, she chose some frames and I was present when paying for them when the manager said;"You'll really notice the difference with these specs..."

When she collected her new glasses, once in the car she did a side by side test with her old glasses to find that they were no better, and possibly worse. She stuck with them for a couple of days, but repeatedly found no improvement.

I then took them back to the shop for a refund only to be refused and told" nobody forced your wife to buy them".

I left them on the counter and after several failed attempts managed to get hold of the regional manager who repeated the, "nobody forced...", mantra. I was having a measured conversation with her when she said, "We are going round in circles here" and put the phone down on me!

My point at this stage was that my wife had been mis sold the specs as apart from her reading requirement, her long distance vision prescription had changed by the smallest amount measurable. After a small amount of googling, it became clear that many opticians would not prescribe new glasses for such a small change as the difference would be unnoticed by the wearer.

At no point was my wife asked if she wanted new glasses when there would be no no percetible difference. She already had 2 pairs of glasses which the opticians were aware of, having checked their strength on a machine in the shop.

It became apparent at this point as well that the store wasn't even a proper Boots Opticians but merely a franchise.

I escalated this to Big Boots in Nottingham and went through customer service levels until I got to the team leader of the Opticians team. She was rude, patronising and completely obstructive. She was talking to my wife as she refused to listen what I had to say, dismissing my points with "You weren't in the room."

She constantly tried to trip my wife up on her statements to try and discredit her point. In the end she said,"Nobody told your wife her prescription hadn't changed, she bought the glasses anyway". She seemed to think that was her winning point and would not take on board that proved the specs had been mis sold as it was clear to the optician, if not my wife, that that was the case, and clearly didn't need them from a practical point of view. I spoke to this harridan again (customer services shouting? Epic fail!) who just point blank refused to do anything about the £150 wasted and refused to tell me the name of her superior. She also told me that as we had used a franchise it was them I should deal with and not Boots.

Utterly gobsmacked with their attitude. Am I being unreasonable in wanting a refund? Can't believe Boots are behaving this way, totally bizarre. I think my next step is to email the top man, who interestingly is a vice president of the institute of Customer Service, lol.
http://www.instituteofcustomerservice.com/12186/Vice-president-SimonRoberts.html

InsideInsurance

So no perceivable change but:

(a) your wife is reporting a change as she says her eye sight isnt as good as it was

(b) the new glasses are worse than the old ones

Based on the above two I would argue a refund is inappropriate however a retest of her eyes and some free lenses should the results come out differently may be appropriate.

As counterance, our experience of Specsavers has been almost the opposite. The Mrs was reporting much worsened eyesight recently so went to them and had new glasses made up. In the space between that and them being ready she was admitted to hospital with insanely high blood sugar levels despite no personal diabetic history.

High blood sugar causes changes to your sight so when she went to collect the new glasses they were totally useless for her. Obviously this was no fault of Specsavers at all but still they retested her again and made new lenses for the frames free of charge.

Personally I hate eye tests, at the start its easy but later on when they are fine tuning 99% of the time I have no idea if A or B looks better. Both look slightly fuzzy just in different ways.

Errata

Wouldn't it be worth chucking a few quid at another opticians for a test? You can then compare their prescription with the Boots one.

sandie3

Personally I am surprised at the reaction from Boots as a company, but if as you say, the opticians you used were a franchise, then maybe the Boots company themselves don't have the same "options" as they would otherwise. That does not excuse the attitude you got from the staff at head office or in fact the franchise itself. If it was me, I would put my experience in writing to Head Office, its extremely unusual for anyone at customer services to behave like that (hope you got a name) and as the franchise is using the "Boots" name, its something that will reflect on the companies name. Try doing some research into who is their Managing Director, and send the letter to him/her.

andygo

Most likely going to a 'main' Boots to get another eye test done. There was no offer for a re test at the place we dealt with, which I would have thought was there 1st choice actually, rather than put up the barriers.

Once a second eye test has been done, then I will be writing to HQ, don't worry!

Inside Insurance, not sure why you feel a refund is not appropriate.

Have already done a bit of research into the head man, see bottom of my original post.

sandie3

Sorry Andy, had missed the last bit of your original post. Having worked for Boots in the past, though not for about 3 years, I would have been in serious trouble if I had treated a customer like you've been. I am VERY surprised at your experience with customer services, but having said that, when I worked for the company, Boots Opticians were a separate "entity" and that even goes for ones that aren't franchises, but ofcourse that might have changed now. I hope you get the problem sorted.

kirtondm

could always involve the independent regulator?


http://www.opticalcomplaints.co.uk/

janicelaker

I had an experience like that before. They were trying to sell me a second pair of glasses when I didn't even need them. It's like sales pressure, just say no and move on.