For Eyes 3
August 26th, 2008 by ComputerBob
Yesterday, I took my new bifocals to my eye doctor’s office, and a technician there spent about 30 minutes checking them for me and comparing them to my older bifocals.
She told me that she can see exactly what I described — the lenses on my new glasses look to her like they weren’t ground correctly.
So I went back to JC Penneys and asked for a refund. I figured I can still wear my no-line bifocals from several years ago — they work fine for distance and allow me to read everything except small print up close.
But it turns out that they don’t give refunds. It supposedly says so on their receipt. You know — the receipt that they give you after you’ve paid for your new non-refundable glasses, but several days before they actually make your glasses.
I didn’t feel like causing a scene and demanding a refund anyway, so I let the woman who runs the place take my eye measurements for what was either the fourth or fifth time — I lost track awhile ago.
She ended up with significantly different readings than all of her other employees had gotten — and then she looked in their records and saw that none of their previous readings had agreed with each other.
So she took my measurements again, just to be sure. To clarify, she wasn’t checking my prescription — she was measuring how far apart my pupils are, how high they are from the bottom of the frames that I had chosen, etc.
Then I did something that I rarely ever do — I decided to pay an additional $55 to upgrade to lenses with a Carl Zeiss progressive lens technology that provides a significantly bigger “sweet spot” of focus than the first two sets of incorrectly-ground lenses did.
Several days from now, I’ll find out if the new measurements were correct and if my new lenses will finally be right.
When this is over, I think it’s going to be a long, long time before I bother getting another new pair of glasses.
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Consumer Info, Personal
August 26th, 2008 at 9:55 am
Bob,
I have had the same problems and finally learned that they either focus on the distance or bi-focal part of the lens, which means the other one suffers a bit in comparison. I too found that I had a spot about the size of a dime to look through and it drove me nuts. I understand why people would rather have two pairs of glasses rather than bi-focals.
I learned something else after two years of complaining. I could get a pair of “computer glasses.” They’re nothing more than lenses whose prescription is based on the distance you sit from your monitor. I love ‘em! No more craning around trying to get something in focus.
RR
August 26th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Hi Rick,
I would have been delighted if mine had had a sweet spot the size of a dime, and that’s about how big it is in my old bifocals, but in my case, the close-up sweet spot in my new glasses was about half the size of a a pea — almost non-existent!!!
Computer glasses sound like a great idea. I’ll keep that in mind in case I end up needing another option after Penneys’ next attempt at getting my glasses right.