Bad Experience: EyeMasters
It's rare that I'm moved to share a bad experience with a broad audience like this, but this one has been so difficult that I want to warn others.
I apologize if this is off-topic for this list, but I think it's important.
Here's a letter I just wrote to ECCA, the parent company of EyeMasters. If anyone has a recommendation for an eye doctor and eyeglass store, I'd love to hear them. EyeMasters definitely isn't it!
First, let me say that I'm fully aware of, and appreciate, your unconditional money back guarantee.
However, having a good guarantee doesn't excuse bad service.
My wife and I recently went into the EyeMasters store at Braker Village here in Austin, Texas. We were examined by the doctor next door, as recommended by the nice folks in the store. After our examination, we went in to pick and order two pairs of glasses each - progressive lenses and reading glasses for each of us. While it took a very long time, the service was friendly and courteous.
And then we started having problems.
First, our reading glasses came in. My wife's were okay, but I couldn't see properly through mine. It turned out that the fairly new eye doctor next door had given me a prescription that didn't work properly. The EyeMasters store took the new prescription and made new glasses. That was nice.
Then my wife's progressives were ready. She picked them up, and discovered that the lab had put her reading prescription in the left lens, and her progressive prescription in her right lens. So she took them back and they were corrected.
Then my progressives were ready. They were bad, but once again it turned out that the nice doctor next door had not done a good job - I had explained that I needed the glasses primarily for working at the computer all day, needing them primarily focused at the screen, with some reading prescription at the bottom. She had "put in a little distance correction". The prescription had a very narrow band that let me see the computer screen, and then I had to tilt my head up and down to read the entire screen. I went back to the eye doctor (again) and saw a different doctor (same office, different doctor) who gave me a new prescription for bifocals. I'm waiting for those now.
At this last visit, the doctor also prescribed some distance lenses for driving, which I received and they seem to be fine. Although I'm getting pretty skeptical at this point.
Then my wife realized that her progressives (the second ones) were still not right - she can't read properly with her left eye. So she will be taking them back again.
At this point, we haven't decided whether we're keeping on with this or just returning all of the glasses and going elsewhere.
In the years that my wife has been wearing glasses, having had many different sets of lenses, she has NEVER had to go back to have them corrected. I'm relatively new at this, but I've never had to go back either.
This is astonishing, that in one experience with the doctor's office recommend by the EyeMasters store and in working with that store, we have so far been there at least six times to get four pairs of glasses (now five) done properly, and we're not done yet. Truly astonishing.
Regardless of our decision about whether to finish with my wife's glasses, you may be assured that we will not be back, and that we will be sure to share this story with our friends and colleagues.
While I acknowledge that you cannot be responsible for the doctor, even though your store sublets space to them and recommends them, the whole experience definitely falls squarely on your shoulders.
With frustration and disappointment,
Steven List
