Laser Eye Surgery takes longer to heal

GandalfG

Hi whilst away on Holiday, I paid for laser eye surgery for my wife on my credit card.
The surgery offered two types, one which takes a month or two to heal and one which is only a few days.
I elected to use the more expensive one because we were on holiday and did not want her walking around half blind.
In practice, it took about 2 months to heal. clearly not as described.

I contacted the credit card company under section 75 and they refused my complaint.
I then referred it to the ombudsman who has advised that they should pay me the difference between the expensive surgery and the cheaper option seeing as now three months later her vision is good.
Should I accept this compromise?

As far as I understand they have provided me with a service not as advertised and therefore should refund me the full amount.

I would never have chosen to buy the cheaper option at the time as it would have (and did) ruined my holiday.

shaun_from_Africa

Did they give a cast iron guarantee that in all cases it would only take a couple of days to totally heal? or was it a case of "most people are fine after a couple of days"?

Any surgery can have complications for some people and no two people would be exactly the same when it comes to both the op itself and any post operative conditions.

Browntoa

I wouldn't even have risked laser eye surgery abroad and during a holiday


where was it done ?

pinkshoes

I think the solution sounds fair given the treatment DID work.

If you look through the T&Cs you signed up to, I imagine there is something about not always having such a quick recovery...

GandalfG

They persuaded me based on the recovery time.
there was nothing in the T&C
It was a place a few people I know had a good experience with.

The ombudsman had the whole site translated in order to check and has decided that with regard to the timescale I am correct.

The question which I wanted answered was only whether it is correct legally to theoretically refund me and then charge me for the cheaper procedure when I did not want the cheaper procedure and definitely not then.

marcarm

Which procedure did she have and which one did you pay for? LASEK or LASIK?

As said, there are no guarantees of recovery time, and if you wanted LASIK, paid for LASIK and got LASIK I can't see where you have a claim.

I recovered after LASIK within the day, my wife took a week so everyone is different.

GandalfG

SMILE RELEX
different from both lasik and lasek

agrinnall

The question is, did you actually get ReLEx SMILE or not? If you did then I doubt if there's any guarantee on recovery time. If you didn't then clearly you didn't get what you paid for and should be due at least the difference. I don't see how the ombudsman can be qualified to make a decision, I would have though that you would need a report from an optometrist on what technique was actually carried out.

naedanger

GandalfG wrote: »

The question which I wanted answered was only whether it is correct legally to theoretically refund me and then charge me for the cheaper procedure when I did not want the cheaper procedure and definitely not then.

If (a huge if) you could convince a court they guaranteed recovery within a few days then I don't think you would get a full refund. You would be compensated for any damages that arose from the extra recovery time. So perhaps loss of enjoyment of part of the holiday. That compensation could be more or less than what the Ombudsman is proposing.

In practice I suspect you would not win a court case based on what you have said. (But you know more about the case than anyone here.)

steampowered

I would have thought that everyone would be different.

Personally it took me a few hours to recover from laser eye surgery and I would have been able to go to work the next day. But perhaps it takes longer for other people.

Out of interest, how bad was it for your wife during the 2 months it took to heal? Could she still do normal activities or did it cause her real difficulty?

martinsurrey

GandalfG wrote: »

The question which I wanted answered was only whether it is correct legally to theoretically refund me and then charge me for the cheaper procedure when I did not want the cheaper procedure and definitely not then.

if you want a full refund you cant have betterment, the court might ask you to poke your wife in the eyes so her sight isn't any better than it was... I mean she cant get better eye sight for free...