So before you get too far in to this post, I should warn you that this is not a post of philosophical musings about happened in the past year. It is about vision, quite literally. So I wear glasses. I have for a very long time. There are even some pictures of me with glasses that belong on an 80 year old man! It’s not so bad, and to be honest I’m just used to them now so it’s rare that I notice them.
When I got married earlier this year, I added vision insurance to my policies for 2009. The really reason was that my wife can’t see anything farther than 8 ft in front of her so we needed to get her some specs! In April, we got eye exams at the Hour Eyes a few miles down the road. My wife got some new glasses from them, but since my prescription didn’t change (yay, for my eyes!!!) I didn’t bother. Simple enough.
Faster forward to December 29th. That’s when I realized that I had paid for insurance for 9 months and that I hadn’t fully used it by getting glasses. Off to Hour Eyes we went, since they already had my prescription and took the insurance. After a little while, we found a set of frames that I liked. Next we getting in to a holding pattern for an associate. After a quick game of musical chairs we find ourselves discussing the finer points of optical accessorizing. Now the fun begins.
So I wanted a pair of backup glasses, since my current pair are perfectly fine. First we get the pitch for anti-glare coating on my lenses. Sounds great but it will cost me $45 after the insurance deduction. Reminding myself that I won’t use these everyday, I said pass. Being the ambitious sales person that this lady was, we being a battle of wills that I thankfully won. Now on to the lenses. I did decide to go with polycarbonate lenses. They cost more, but if you’ve ever worn real glass on your face, you’d cough up the money too. So after a few minutes on the computer, out comes my grand total of $115. I guess that’s not too bad, but curiosity proved to be friend. I enquired about the lenses. Sure enough, they were polycarbonate, but not just any polycarbonate, super-flat polycarbonate at a $50 premium!!!!!!! Had I not asked, this saleswoman would not have told me that she had made a choice for me. So re-thinking my choice and the choice made for me, I opt for regular polycarbonate lenses with an anti-glare coating. So lets do the math together: $115 – $50 + $45 = $110. That makes sense right? Well, my new total: $72. HUH?! Ok, so I whip out credit card, sign on the dotted line and out the door I run, thinking I saved a bunch. As I’m heading out the door, the saleswoman hands me a bag with lens-cleaner and tells me it comes complimentary with my anti-glare coating. Great, who cares, I’m going home!
As I sit here stewing over the fuzzy math, thinking about the decisions that were made without my explicit consent, and looking over my receipt, I realized a few things and I’m getting steadily more disappointed with what I consider a dishonest way of doing business. First, my free lens-cleaner actually cost $7, that bites, but not as bad as the rest. Second, my insurance deduction isn’t itemized, it’s just one lump-sum discount, very informative. Lastly, when the saleswoman told me about the premium for the super-poly lenses, it was actually $50 per lens! I’m guess she was intentionally vague, because $50 is easier to sell than $100. Redoing the math, things are starting to make sense: $115 – $50 – $50 + $45 + $7 + tax & rounding = $72
To wrap-up this little rant…I went to a store, told a salesperson I wanted something, and they intentionally gave me a more expensive option without disclosing that there was a choice involved. Sure, she could argue that I asked for poly lenses and she gave me poly lenses. But I would argue that an honest salesperson would have presented the choice to me and let me make the decision for myself, not try to slip it under my nose. I hate being cynical and skeptical about people. (In fact I was lecturing my brothers about being a little more trusting.) I guess in the end, you still have look out for yourself, because there are still plenty of people looking to dupe you. Not such a great thought, but I’m going to try to hang on to my optimism. Makes me wonder if we got hoodwinked when we bought my wife glasses in April. Oh well, I guess this is the last time Hour Eyes will get my business.
January 2nd, 2010 at 3:31 PM
Looks like you can’t trust the system.