I visited the Wigmore Street store in the afternoon on 14 November 2019. I got a cleaning liquid refill, wanted to get the cleaning wipes (which they did not have in stock) and tried some frames on as I wanted to update my current glasses. I was helped by a friendly member of staff. While speaking to her, another member of staff came out from the back and I was told (not even accused but outright told) that I had stolen a frame from the display, which she said had been caught by the CCTV cameras. Initially, I was astounded and could not get my head round the situation I found myself in. I proposed that they searched my bag. As they refused to do so, I emptied it on the counter. I asked them to review the CCTV footage as I knew they were mistaken. This was also refused. I could not think of any other way of resolving the situation, so I left and subsequently contacted the head office.
Today I received a reply with a sort of an apology. No information was given whether they had conducted any kind of investigation and if they finally realised the staff had made a mistake. Basically, rather than saying that they had checked the CCTV footage and realised they were in the wrong, they only stated that they will review the way they approach member of the public (as I expressively stated I will never return to any of their stores, I'm not sure of the relevance of the information to my situation). It is also obvious from the head office's reply that they are just not bothered about losing business - absolutely no attempt was made to rectify their error.
So be careful when browsing in the store, the staff treats you as thieves and even their head office thinks little of loyal customers.
Interestingly enough, when googling their customer service email, this article in the Guardian comes up:
David Clulow illegally used a premium-rate number - "David Clulow changed its helpline to a standard-rate number as soon as the Observer queried it, but failed to comment on why it had continued the premium rate in breach of the law and ignored your complaints".
One can only conclude that such poor treatment of customers is systemic and not much can be expected from this so-called premier optician. read more