VisionWorks can take a flying leap at a rancid rats hole.
My VA health care gives me free eye exam and glasses, but the glasses are only the thick rimmed 'birth control' glasses. So I bought vision insurance this year (BlueCross FEP).
I took my Rx to VisionWorks - they're in the BC FEP 'network'.
I selected frames and gave them my Rx.
The lady spent about 20 mins on the computer and then said "$450" WHAT?!?! The ins covers the frames and 50% of the lenses!! All I asked for were progressives w/ anti-glare coating.
She had put in a list of 'premium options', w/o asking or telling me!! I basically had to threaten to leave w/o buying before she 'managed' to get the price (to me) to $140.
I got the glasses today. I walked in to VisionWorks to pick them up with the receipt in their bright red envelope in my hand. A gal greeted me and lead me to the exam waiting area. She didn't ask my name or why I was there... She brought a clipboard w/ forms and I told her "I'm here to pick up my glasses" and held up the bright red envelope. W/o appology, she led me to another gal.
The second gal took my receipt, read it and asked for my full name - after she read it on the receipt!
She had me take a seat and try on the glasses. After a quick adjustment, she said "Thank you" with a weak smile.
No care info. No customer service info. No cleaning cloth or cleaning solution.
Neither of the ladies had name tags, so I can't even tell customer service who gave me the terrible service.
And, I'm getting Spam Emails from VisionWorks w/ 'special' offers.
Ah, eye glasses. The second biggest sham in the world.
I spent a year or so a couple years back getting to know the business working on an ecommerce platform for one of the larger indie eyeglass labs.
You don't need to spend that much. Luxottica has a strangle-hold on all the retail brands, much like DeBeers has with diamonds, or Amazon is coming to have with all their private-label brands that sound like popular, non-Amazon retail brands.
There are a number of online sources where you can get glasses for WAY cheaper that are still top-line products with good-to-great lenses.
Your eye doc is under no legal requirement to only sell you the products they make huge profits on, but there you go. They profit. They're just resellers. They generally make far more on the glasses than the actual doctorin'. Sadly.
They have to give you the Rx. They are *NOT* required to give you the PD measurment (pupilary distance) and seg-height, but most will, and even if they hit you a small "admin fee" to give up that information, it's worth it. The $25 they might charge you is anywhere from 1/8th to about 1/16th the money you can save going indie.
Contact these guys; they can point you to any number of indie retailers locally or with online presence that will save you metric shit tons of money.
Most people think eye glasses are some black magic wonder that *HAVE* to cost so much; they are not, and do not. The world has been making them for hundreds of years. The problem is a few enterprising folks snatched up market share along the way and price-fix and control things because no one knew better, and because people don't trust... well... posts like this.
Surely this guy on some stupid motorcycle forum couldn't possibly know this with any authority.
I do. It was an eye-opening year of discovery and revulsion working with them. I wear glasses (mostly for reading). You'll never find me in a common, brand-name store or lab ever again.
http://www.feaind.com/They're a lab, not a full retailer (yet...?). Part of the platform I was building was to enable them to sell direct to folks using the ecommerce underpinnings and templated-site model. I don't know if they've gone live yet, or to what capacity, but they can definitely get you to a retailer they work through, if they haven't started their retail push yet.
FEA. Good family owned company, several generations. "Fast, Efficient, Accurate." That's what the website says. Hah! FEA stands for - for real - "fuck 'em all" because that's what Bill, the owner, said as he broke out on his own to prove that all the other big eyeglass labs were price fixing pieces of shit. They're something like the 4th largest lab nationally, and the biggest indie lab.
