If I could give this place negative every star in the sky, I would. Sit down, this is going to take a while.
Last summer, my eyes started to become really dry and I noticed my vision had worsened... time for a trip to the eye doctor! At the time I was working blocks away, and figured that I was very happy with my experience at the Pearle Vision I had been using for quite some time near my parents' place in New Jersey. Little did I know... little did I know...
Well, I'll get the positives out of the way first. The optician, ophthalmologist, or whatever her title is, was a very nice lady. I could only really say nice things about her. She helped get my dry eyes under control and assisted me in obviously finding out what my new prescription was but also picking a brand of contacts suitable for me.
Now we get to the worst story of customer service of all time.
The backstory is that the previous summer I bought a nice pair of Prada frames for the Pearle Vision I spoke of earlier. They cost a pretty penny, but I figured that I would go a little more frugal when it came to getting the actual lenses. So at the time, I purchased no frills lenses, no special glare protection, no special extra tough scratch protection, just some basic lenses.
Now back to my experience at this Pearle. Since my prescription had changed, I needed to replace the lenses especially since part of my dry eye recovery regime required me to wear them more often. I told the employee I want the same exact kind of lenses that were in the frames, nothing special, no special coating that will prevent heart disease or cancer or whatever. He takes a look at them and tells me, "Okay, I will give you the same kind you have." He takes my glasses, and rings me up.
"$323."
My jaw hit the floor. I don't even think my lenses PLUS the frames cost that much the previous summer. At this point I am like, "HOLD UP." I tell him to show me the bill and I grab both it and some lens brochure that talks about every stupid thing in the world you can have done to your lenses, and sure enough he was trying to charge me for all of them.
I actually pay for the lens at the time, which in hindsight was silly to begin with, but I tell the guy, "I don't want you to TOUCH those glasses and put in any frames until I come back tomorrow."
Between that visit and the next one, I speak to the very kind people at the NJ Pearle Vision and they agree to fax over my bill from my last visit and sure enough I ordered the most basic lenses for somewhere around $79. Yeah... the Pearle on Montague was trying to charge me over $200 more than what I should be paying.
So I go back the next day with both originals and photocopies (because I knew I couldn't trust the staff as far as I could throw them). I ask to speak to the manager, and the guy I speak to says that he is the assistant manager and the manager wasn't in. I tell him that I came in the previous day to previous my lenses with the the same exact type I had except with the new prescription and that his employee tried to rip me off. He says that there must be some sort of misunderstanding and he takes a look at the lenses to see if they are what I claim them to be. I then show him both the bill I received the previous day and the one from the summer before, and he is speechless.
I tell him that I want my money back from the previous day, I want my glasses back, and I want to speak to the manager.
He refunds my money and then has the audacity to ask if I wanted the lenses I wanted for the $79 before giving me back the glasses with the original lenses in them. Are you kidding me? Not only should I be getting them for free but at this point he should be giving me an extra pair. During the whole refund process he attempts to keep all the paperwork except for the receipt for the refund, I just wanted to see how ridiculous he would be, and then I bust out the copies I had in my work bag and say, "Hmmm, actually, don't worry about it, looks like I already made myself some copies."
He says the manager isn't in, she's away on vacation for a week, blah blah blah. I tell him I will be back in a week everyday until I can speak to the manager. I do come back several times, she's never there, I finally get to speak to her on the phone and she was of no use either.
End of story, I go to the Pearle in NJ, they charge me what I would've been charged to begin with and were pretty appalled when I told them the story. (It would've been pretty 5 stars-ish for the NJ Pearle to give me some free lenses, but that didn't happen... can't really blame them though) read more