Rejecting new glasses

Soldato
Joined
14 Jul 2005
Posts
8,272
Location
Birmingham
Hi all,

Has anyone rejected glasses obtained from an opticians, or does anyone know of the mechanisms available to do this?

I had new glasses recently and whilst the prescription is perfect, everything looks 'spherical' (best way I can describe it). I.e its throwing off the perspective of things badly. I don't know who is at fault but they are almost unwearable.

Im going to call up today but I wanted to see what rights I had.

Thanks
 
Soldato
Joined
19 Apr 2003
Posts
13,513
Has anyone rejected glasses obtained from an opticians
Yes, but on closer inspection there was a problem with the lens that they could identify.

But, i would argue if you're having problems they're not fit for purpose - regardless of what their closer inspection brings up. Get them to swap out the lenses.

*To clarify you're not trying a different style of lens - e.g. varifocal for the first time?
 
Man of Honour
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
39,945
Had an issue from specsavers. Left eye was fine, right eye was abysmal. Could see more without the glasses on.

Went in, they checked the lens against prescription, then checked my prescription against my eyes. Apparently it was fine, it was just my eyes weren't comfortable with the new prescription. *cough* utter bovine growth product *cough* They ended up remaking the right lens, twice... I had especially asked for Trivex lenses that they normally only use for childrens glasses. They didn't notice that they person who made them first time didn't polish the edge of the lens. So I had light diffusion throughout the lens, rainbow effects and so on. So, they had to make it again without the edge polishing step.

I don't go back to specsavers.
 
Soldato
Joined
2 Aug 2012
Posts
7,809
Heard nothing but bad reports of Specsavers and the large chains.

One generally only gets bad reports anyway. Sadly people are far more likely to moan than offer praise.

As ever, I suppose it depends on who you get. Spec-savers has always been fine for me. :/
 
Soldato
Joined
26 Jan 2006
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12,314
Location
Belfast
One generally only gets bad reports anyway. Sadly people are far more likely to moan than offer praise.

As ever, I suppose it depends on who you get. Spec-savers has always been fine for me. :/
Well one was my dad and they messed up to pairs. And a few in work.
 
Soldato
Joined
10 Oct 2005
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8,706
Location
Nottingham
Rejected glasses several times ... just went in and said there was something wrong with them (as there was) and they checked and eventually provided replacements. Frankly at the cost of the glasses they had better be right.
 
Associate
Joined
2 Oct 2006
Posts
2,276
Rejected the first and second pair of my new Lindburgs. The third pair was then ordered and made by Lindburg and are perfect.

If I’m paying £600 for a pair of glasses they’d better be perfect!
 
Associate
Joined
31 Mar 2016
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Moonbase Alpha
I've never had a problem with my Boots (formerly Dolland & Aitchson), where I live now or before. I don't think opticians need to be used to your eyes, they're not like who does your hair.
I've been wearing glasses for 38 years now.
 
Last edited:
Associate
Joined
2 Aug 2013
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124
Location
Oxfordshire
I can remember a few years ago when I put my new glasses on and it made my head spin. Tried them for a while, but had to go back. They sorted them out ok. Nowadays I normally take new glasses home and start with them the following day after a night's sleep.

I've been with the big chains for a while, but now as my age is creeping up and into the realms of varifocals, I'm sorely tempted to move to an independent as although the service seems fine in the chains, there's something I seem to be missing there. Can't quite put my finger on what it is....
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
14 Jul 2005
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8,272
Location
Birmingham
Thanks for replies. I went in yesterday and they reckon the extra thin lenses I paid for are whats causing the spherical effect so are dropping back a level of thickness. Failing that they said Id have to get smaller frames so I dont get as much distortion at the edges.

To be honest I would have assumed edge distortion would be something they could adjust for in lens design but hey ho obviously not.

This is made worse because i wear contacts normally so putting on the glasses less often means i notice the distortion more.
 
Soldato
Joined
16 Aug 2009
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7,728
If its a bit of edge distortion every pair of specs I've ever owned have had that your eyes will adjust after a day or so. If they were out of focus or other anomaly I'd take them back but but a bit of edge distortion is normal in my experience.
 
Soldato
Joined
21 Apr 2007
Posts
6,590
Yes, I went back because I hated thinner lenses and chromatic abberation.

They offered to swap them back to standard lenses free or charge. Speak to your optician lad and they will sort it for you.

I ended up just living with it, it's the nature of the material used.... I see rainbow coloured halos when looking at white object side on.

Edit: Oh yes and peripheral distortion, got that too. It's because again the material used. If I move head side to side look out edges of lens things go blurrier. Center is clearest obviously. I just got used to it like the optician said i would.

The non thin lenses again this edge distortion is less noticeable. But if you pay for thinner lenses it's unavoidable AFAIK.
 
Associate
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9 Feb 2009
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Location
Up North
One generally only gets bad reports anyway. Sadly people are far more likely to moan than offer praise.

As ever, I suppose it depends on who you get. Spec-savers has always been fine for me. :/

Likewise, glasses and contact wearer via Specsavers, no issues at all over probably 13 years of use now.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
5 Dec 2003
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20,997
Location
Just to the left of my PC
Hi all,

Has anyone rejected glasses obtained from an opticians, or does anyone know of the mechanisms available to do this?

I had new glasses recently and whilst the prescription is perfect, everything looks 'spherical' (best way I can describe it). I.e its throwing off the perspective of things badly. I don't know who is at fault but they are almost unwearable.

Im going to call up today but I wanted to see what rights I had.

Thanks

I rejected 2 pairs recently (distance and reading) from Specsavers. Somewhere in the region of £300 for the lenses (which probably means they cost Specsavers about £50). I just went back and explained the problem. They replaced the lenses. No charge, no problems.

The issue I encountered was due to the refractive index of the lenses. Higher refractive index lenses are often sold as thinner and lighter (which they are), but little or no mention is made of the disadvantages. Hardly surprising, since the business can charge a customer more for them. Higher refractive index lenses can reduce the clarity of peripheral vision. Some people are fine with that, either because they're not badly affected or because they accept substantial loss of peripheral vision as a drawback of wearing glasses. There are trends (e.g. people with more astigmatism tend to be more badly affected by it), but there's a lot of individual variation. In my case, the loss of peripheral vision was enough to make the varifocal aspect of the lens completely useless since I could only see clearly when looking directly ahead through the centre of the lens. I went down a couple of steps on the refractive index options, back to the same material as my previous glasses (a polycarbonate) as I knew those worked.

EDIT: My mistake. The two pairs I rejected were varifocal and reading, not distance and reading. I chose distance and reading as the replacements. Now I'm thinking that I might try varifocal with the lower refractive index because my experience of varifocal was obviously tainted by the high refractive index. Maybe next time.
 
Associate
Joined
10 Oct 2011
Posts
936
I rejected glasses from SpecSavers once and they were absolute turds about it.

I bought a pair with the transitions lenses and when I put them on in the shop they were fine. After going outside there was a clear problem with them, the transition coating was uneven so they looked stripy when they went dark.

Took them back and was told they were supposed to be like that so asked to speak to a manager. The shop assistant wandered off and came back with a manager and showed them to him using a UV light behind me, at which point the manager says 'wow, those look really bad ".

Manager then comes over to me and tries to convince me they are supposed to be like that. I told him I overheard what he said about them looking bad and he protested a little but agreed to remake them.

Picked them up a few days later and they had the same issue and again they tried to convince me it was normal. Made them do it again and told them not to waste my time by calling me in unless they had checked them first. Ended up with a free pair of sunglasses as well.
 
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