LensCrafters es como el forro!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My e-complaint that I sent to the Attorney General of Florida, Bill McCollum:

“I bought some lenses and frames at the Sawgrass Mills Mall Lenscrafters store on March 6th, 2008. The scotchgard coating on the lenses has wrinkled and thus I see blurrily through them now. They are ruined. I called Lenscrafters to have them replaced and they told me I would have to pay half the price of the lenses replacement because, as Gonzalo, the general manager told me, "Lenscrafters doesn't make the lenses." Apparently this means they don't guarantee their replacement. My question to you is, how is this legal? I live in Santiago, Chile, and here in the "third world", we have a consumer rights agency that protects us consumers from these kinds of sales practices. Despite what the companies here tell us about their policies, they have a legal responsibility to repair, replace, or refund faulty products up to 6 months after the sale. Since the United States of America is the "first world", I thought we might have a policy like that good for a year.

Is there a law that protects me against this sort of sales trick? The 30 day moneyback guarantee is all "show" to try to get the consumer to trust the company. And then the real guarantee, the one I'm counting on, ends up being a sales trick. I buy one pair of lenses, and I'm forced to buy the second pair at 50%. That sounds more like a sales tactic than a guarantee.”

I've forgotten the last paragraph of the e-complaint, but that basically sums it up.

(I love this third world/first world terminology. It’s so great at provoking shame and it works in both directions, pitting one theoretical world against another. E.g. “Here in the third world, consumers are better protected than there in the first world.” “Once again, we got typical third-world customer service.”)

If you only have “about an hour” (which is never about an hour, it’s more like a day) to buy glasses, you may be in a hurry and not read the back of the receipt that says the guarantee is horseshit after 30 days. You awe the consumer with the 30-day absolute, no-questions-asked complete refund guarantee. And we don’t even ask about what happens after that. I’ll tell you, your lenses break and you have to pay HALF of their replacement. What a great “buy-one,-be-forced-to-buy-a-second-pair-at-half-price sales model”. Kudos to whoever thought that one up.

My recipe for bringing down the box store:
Everyone go buy a couple pairs of lenses from Lenscrafters and then return them during the 30 day money back guarantee.

Did David Browne just wake up one day and say, “I’m going to sell crappy products. When they break, the consumer will have to pay to get them replaced.”? So ripping people off is the secret to success. And what's with the super Christian website? Geesh. I'll tell you a secret: find some self respect.

Any hackers out there with time to kill, please go to http://www.lenscrafters.com/
and crash their site please. Pretty please, with cherries on top.

So after googling LensCrafters (what I should have done in the first place), I found other customers who weren’t pleased with the store.
Here
ripoffreport
LensCrafters or how I wasted a whole weekend
a report of LensCrafters on a forum
as well as a Sarah Palin, a LensCrafters model, and
on the BARF forum
Suck it, LensCrafters
why I think LensCrafters sucks
I guess working for them is no fun either
LensCrafters sucks ass.
and it can eat dick too
I'm not the only one who wanted to know who is the current CEO of LensCrafters.
Here's an interesting tidbit I got off wikipedia: LensCrafters maintains "corporate headquarters in Mason, Ohio (near Cincinnati), along with Sunglass Hut International; but, in fact, both firms are wholly owned subsidiaries of the Italian-based Luxottica. Luxottica also owns Pearle, Target Optical, JCPenney Optical, Sears Optical and EyeMed Vision Care."
I must concede that some customers are satisfied; apparently this doughy, middle-aged guy liked the store.

I've learned in the future I need to do my homework BEFORE I buy glasses. Cuak! This has not been my customer service month in either the "first" or "third" worlds.