I wear progressive lenses, went to Bay Optical for my yearly checkup and new pair of glasses. The…read morefirst weird thing that happened is I was told my insurance company would only pay for the frame, and not a new pair of lenses till next year. My insurance company pays about half the price for a whole pair of glasses every year. My husband called the insurance company on his cell and was told someone put in for a pair of contact lenses in my name this year, although I have not worn contacts in over ten years. They needed us to certify that I never got contacts before they would pay for the lenses. We never did resolve who got a pair of contacts on my insurance.
Now for the glasses. I chose a slightly larger frame than I had before and didn't realize it sat lower on my nose, making my eyes higher in the frame. Ist time I picked the glasses up, I was given something to hold up at an angle and read, and all seemed okay. When I got home, I noticed I could not read anything flat on the desk in front of me (make out checks, sign documents, etc.) without tilting my head back and rolling my eyes all the way down. The "near" vision portion of the lens was a tiny area (about 1/4 inch) all the way down at the bottom. Could not use them without eye pain and headache. I took them back the next day, waited a week for another pair of lenses. This time there was no middle vision area. I repeatedly explained that I use a computer all day and need this more than distance vision; however most of the lenses were taken up by distance vision. I was told that the measurements are the same for all sized frames, no matter where they sit on your nose they cannot adjust the various vision fields. This makes no sense, again I have worn progressives for many years, have at least 12 pairs, and much more detailed measurements were usually taken. The nosepiece on these frames caused their rigid measuring system to place the middle and near vision so far down on the lens that they were no longer in front of my eyes. I was also told they had recently been having similar problems with the place they get their lenses from.
I tried to view their computer screen and could only see the 2 lines of text in the middle of the screen clearly, both above and below the center of the screen were blurry. I had to move my head up and down to read the entire screen on the computer, I could not read by just moving my eyes. I was asked to come back a 3 rd time and check the prescription. The optometrist started making suggestions that I could do to make it work. She suggested I get a pair of glasses just for computer use (my old glasses were fine for that, I wanted a nice new pair I could use all day or get up from the computer and do other things without having to change glasses.) She told me my computer screen must be at the wrong angle, then she told me it must be too far from my face. When I reminded her I tried the glasses on HER computer screen and couldn't see her screen either, she had no answer. She wanted me to take them home again and try them in "my environment." She made me feel as if I was the problem and I told her so, but it didn't help. Her only suggestions were that I needed to rearrange my entire workspace to try and accommodate a pair of glasses, when I never had any problems with any past pairs of glasses.
So basically I had a pair of glasses I could not use. In the many years I have worn progressives I never had this problem before, I had bought them at Bay for the previous two years and they were fine. She seemed to be frustrated with me but not solving the problem, she told me there was nothing they could do, no prescription change, no adjusting the progressive areas, etc., and I needed to take them home AGAIN and try them again on my own computer, which made no sense since they did not work on her "properly placed and angled" computer screen. I did not want to make a 4th 30-mile round trip for nothing, so declined, and reluctantly left them there.
Got a refund, EXCEPT they kept a $61.00 "restocking fee." I could understand the restocking fee if I returned them for no reason, but after all my inconvenience and 3 attempts, to wind up with a pair of glasses I couldn't see out of was THEIR fault, not mine. A restocking fee should be waived when a company doesn't deliver a usable product. That is not the consumer's fault. I really loved the frames and was very disappointed that I couldn't use them, but the fee just added insult to injury. I felt strongly enough about this to write a review so others will know what to expect if they need to return the glasses.
