Time For New Spectacles!

• 13th June 2007 at 16:28

I've decided to defect from Boots to Specsavers, on account of Boots being incompetent - Bath were OK, but Sevenoaks, Truro and Cheltenham were not. The final straw was when I noticed that they had kindly cancelled my contact lense direct debit without telling me, leaving me with no contact lenses.

I had my first appointment with Specsavers today; my eyes hadn't changed too much, but my glasses are pretty old and I feel that it's time to get new ones. Makes me a little nervous, for as regular readers may recall, I have had mixed results when it has been time for eye tests in the past.

I was introduced to the sales person, who was told that I would like to buy some glasses. She told me that my prescription is so ridiculous that I need the stupidly expensive thinning treatment to get them to fit on my face. She then started rabbiting on about how I could get a second pair for free, but that didn't cover the lense thinning, so if I wanted that on my second pair I would have to - and I stopped her short. "Well, no thank you," I said. "I only want one pair."

The look on her face was a well-practiced mix of confusion and disbelief that said "Are you mad? Why on earth would you only want ONE pair of glasses?" They train them well in Specsavers.

The thing is that it's always two for one in Specsavers, so the second one isn't really free - they're each going to be roughly half the advertised price, and they plan to make double the profit on the extra options for the lenses. And it's a fairly useless offer anyway - I can only wear one pair of glasses at a time, and I don't want a second pair of tinted glasses. I already pay a stupid amount of money for contact lenses so that I can wear real sunglasses instead.

So I clarified my position. "I would like one pair for half the price."

She made a noise not entirely dissimilar to a recording of someone trying to start a car on a cold day, being played backwards and at half the speed.

For those of you not cursed with the need for a biannual trip to the man who peels back your eyelids with the handle of a spoon, let me explain: opticians like to get you on to a direct debit so they can take your money whether you wear your contacts that month or not. As an incentive, they offer a bevy of discounts; most of them are worthless, but they do give you a 50% discount on certain pairs of glasses, and it was this that I wanted.

Needless to say, it wasn't as simple as that. Because I am a new customer, they didn't want to just sell me the exact same contacts I've been using for years. No, they want to trial me on the exact same lenses I've been using for years, and then come back in two weeks time so they can agree with me that indeed, they do fit, and that I haven't just been imagining it since 2001. Then, and only then, they will let me sign up for my monthly contract, at which point I can at last order my single pair of glasses at half price. I realise that I might sound cheap, but I don't see why I should pay twice as much to get an identical copy of a thing that I don't even want in the first place.

So the tale of my adventures with Specsavers has only just begun. I collect my trial lenses on Saturday - and something tells me that's when the fun will start.

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