Buying lenses

Contact lenses cost a lot of money – our insurances cover most of it, but it’s still a good idea to look for cheap deals. For example, 6 pairs of monthly 30-day constant wear lenses cost $220 when I got them from my optician – but buying the same lenses from a net store I can shave off about $80 off that price. So today I was looking at different places to buy my lenses, and came across a nice looking shop called ClearlyContacts.ca – looked at prices and procedures, and decided to put in an order. Put details of my lenses in and clicked continue – only to find out that by doing this I had already placed the order!

So I went back to their "New Visitors" page that quite clearly says that after pressing continue I should be given a chance to review the order and enter my credit card details – but none of that happened. Next I get an email saying that they will send me the lenses with a bill (extremely rare – this is the first time I’ve seen a net store sending you something that you haven’t already paid for) and after that if I want to pay with a credit card I need to call them. It’s not that these are somehow unfair conditions – it’s the principle that they say one thing and do another.

So I sent them a fairly pissed off email quoting their own pages that explain the "how to order process" that says I should be able to confirm my order and enter my card details, and that I’d like to cancel my order as I’d rather place it with someone I feel more comfortable with. In couple of hours I received a reply:

Thanks for writing. As per your request, your order has been cancelled. As you we not charged for the order because it was an invoice payment, no refund or action is required. We at Clearly Contacts have started a new method of payment for your contact lenses. It is an invoice payment. This means that at any time, you can call us at 1-866-xxx-xxxx to pay by credit card, or wait until you receive the goods to either send a check or credit card info. That is why you didn't need to enter it in at the time of placing your order.

We appreciate your business and hope to hear from you soon!

If you have any further questions, please contact me. Thanks again!

Based on the chirpy tone my frustration obviously escaped them. I’m still debating if I should write to them saying that I don’t have a problem with their method of payment – it’s probably just perfect for some people - but my problem is that if they had said that on the web site I had never placed an order with them as that’s not how I prefer to shop.

Ah well, found another place that was happy to do business my way – me giving them my credit card details and them sending me my goods. If I want to talk to someone, I’ll call my friends. Thank you for listening.

Posted by kolibri at 11 August 15:36, 2005

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