Today I got a new pair of glasses with a new prescription and can see clearly for the first time in 15 years. That is how long I went to Eyes on Regent Square before I finally gave up and went to another optometrist (Costco). That's a long time, I know, and I feel stupid for relying on this place for so long.
I ought to have known something was wrong in 2007 when I got my first eye exam here. The glasses made according to this prescription made me dizzy. After a day I called and discovered the problem. They had recorded the prescription wrong, so the right-hand lense was tilted at 90 degrees. To their credit, they apologized and paid for their mistake. Perhaps this led me to trust them so long.
You can check their inflated prices for yourself. From beginning to end, this new pair from Costco cost me half what I customarily paid at Eyes on Regent Square. The place is a racket. But you can verify all that yourself. What I have to offer are the stories that you could know only by being a custoimer there. And if you read to the end, I don't think you will. I'll fast forward to three incidents from recent years to show how bad it got.
Two years ago the optometrist (Kamons) finished my exam by telling me my eyes had degraded so quickly from my last prescription that I must have undiagnosed diabetes. In a panic, I arranged the tests that week and they came back negative. When I went to pick up my new glasses, I asked to speak with her, figuring she'd want to know my results. She simply shrugged, without any apology or even explanation for her mistake. To her, it was like it had never happened.
Six months later, while examining my 7 year-old daughter, the same optometrist raised her voice, sternly insisting that my daughter was not telling the truth when reporting what she saw. This rattled her and after the visit she cried. Obviously I think it's a bad idea to patroize this store, but above all do not bring your children. Those little letters can look awfully similar, so what kind of person raises her voice and tells a child to stop deceiving?
That should have been enough, but here is the last incident that pushed me to leave and write this review (the first I have ever written of anything). After getting a new prescription last summer, I gave them my Ray Bans to get them updated. These were matte brown frames with brown lenses that I had worn for about three years. They fit perfectly. The order was delayed a few weeks, but when they came back they had grey lenses, were tortoise shell, and didn't fit (they fell off each time I leaned forward). It was absurd.
They checked the order and saw that, yes, I had indeed ordered brown lenses, so they decided to send them back to be re-fit with brown lenses. I told them I didn't mind the grey lenses (in fact, I preferred them!), but that these were not my frames: "These clearly don't fit," I said, tilting my head forward so that they fell off, "and they're tortoise-shell whereas mine were brown." I asked them to look into it, as there seemed to have been a shuffling of orders somewhere along the line. They said they'd call me when it was straightened out.
Another two weeks passed and they called to say my sunglasses were ready. They had simply put brown lenses into those tortoise-shell frames (which still fell off my face). "We can help with the fit," they insisted, heating and bending the temples so that finally they did stay on my face, but only by an obvious curvature in the temples. I didn't mind that they were tortoise-shell (like the grey lenses, I rather liked that), but the weird fit bothered me. What bothered me most of all was that instead of just acknowledging their mistake, they insisted that these were in fact my original frames.
I wore those frames for three years. If you wear glasses, you know the look, feel, and color of your own frames. You just do. The moment they first showed these new ones to me I felt, and said: "These are not my frames." But they just kept insisting. Have you ever had someone deny a reality that you know to be true? It's called gaslighting. This is what they were doing, and I said so.
They checked the serial number of these new frames and the serial number on my order and showed me that they were the same. I said, "this could show instead that someone mistakenly wrote the serial number for these new frames on my order." To this day, this remains the best explanation of this weird incident. Not missing a beat, however, the woman at the desk replied: "You say you had brown frames, not tortoise shell frames, but that's not possible -- Ray Ban does make brown frames."
What could I say? Was I insane? No, I went home and my first google search found the brown-framed (matte, not tortoise) model online: Ray-Ban New Wayfarer Brown Matte RB2132 55-18. Now the whole history of this store finally made sense. They lie. They have to lie in order to hide their incompetence. read more
