Review: Beware Opticsfast.com, which boasts the worst online customer service I've ever encountered

Ordinarily, I wouldn't bother posting about some random online business in my blog, no matter how terrible they were, but I just finished a PhD, so I have a lot of time on my hands, and I've run into this total wreck of a website that's hanging on to $320 of my money. It turns out they have a D- rating with the state Better Business Bureau.  So I'm going the whole route, with a boring SEO-ed title and everything:

For a bit over a year, I've been worrying that I'm going blind in my right eye. I've been nearsighted all my life, but, like, actually going blind. The prescription definitely needed to be raised -- I can't read road signs with that eye anymore at all -- but I swear, I kept seeing this blurry patch when I tried to read things up close, too. I finally got a vision exam a couple weeks ago, and it turned out that my retina was not, as I feared, decaying or detaching right inside my eye, but that the prescription had just gotten so much worse in that one that they couldn't focus together. I'll get vision insurance starting March 1, but it's one of these plans where you can only select certain frames, which doesn't do a picky person like me a lot of good. I found some frames I loved online, found them at a good price, and ordered.

The next day, I got this email from "Becky S.":

Dear [me]

I am very very sorry for the delay in your order. Let me explain what happened.

The item was in stock with a Store Quantity of 1. Prior to each shipment my team checks each and every frame to make sure they 100% perfect with no issues or problems.

The item you purchased had contained a small crack on the frame and I was not comfortable in sending you this item as it was.

What I did was send the item back to the Company for a replacement and to order a new one.

We only sell 100% brand new authentic designer items that are pretty pricey and we must adhere to a high level of perfection.

I got a phone call later in the day to inform us that this item is DISCONTINUED.

I did also send out NETWORK ALERT message to 35 optical stores in my network to see if anyone has this item.

Please be patient and I will get back to you within 48 hours to inform you if anyone has this item.

What response and let us know what you want to do about this situation?

Maybe you want to select an entirely different frame??

I have noted your account and have issued you a 15% OFF your next order for this problem.

The 15% is fully transferable to any of your family friends, coworkers or anyone you know.

You may use this discount on our website.

Your discount code is : OPTICS-DISC1849

Once again I am very sorry for this dissapointment

I know what it feels like to wait for something you really want.

Call us if you have any Questions

Bummer. I replied,

Hi there, and thanks for letting me know. I definitely want this frame -- I looked for it in that particular color at several sites online and ordered at opticsfast because you had the best price. If you can't find it anywhere, I'd like a refund so I can order it elsewhere. Let me know what you find out from your stores! Hopefully one will have the frame and I can get it from you. :)

The offer of finding my frames elsewhere evaporated quickly. She wrote back,

I already have your lenses so let me refund you on the frame and then just use the shipping address on your order from somewhere else to ship to me ok?

Nope. Not ok. I said so --

The lenses aren't much good to me unless I have frames for them. Anywhere else I'm looking at ordering will want to sell me lenses and frames as a package, so I won't be able to use those.

She then said,

The lenses are UNCUT so they can be used for any other frame of your choice

Any company will sell you glases without lenses.

Seriously? (And I don't just mean the typos, misspellings, and missing punctuation.)

I'd then have to find someone to cut them to fit. I want to get lenses and frames, together, so I'm not running around or mailing things all over the place. The whole point of ordering online is that it's easier, after all. If you can't get the frames within your stated period of 48 hours, and don't process my refund, I will have my bank charge the full amount back to you.

Explaining that was more effort than they deserved, but that's the teacher in me.

Why cant you order them online and put my shipping address if you are so sure that they exist?

I am telling you they are gone forever not made anymore nobody has them.

Can we just agree on the other color or style? I don’t want to loose money on the lenses they are your custom RX

Ah yes, because I now trust this company so much I'm going to have frames sent to them from someone else, and expect that they'll put in the lenses and send me my glasses in a reasonable time frame and without further hitches. Also because it's totally a customer's role to handle a bunch of B2B logistics to make a personal purchase online. And because how much money they make or "loose" is a big concern of mine. Right.

Her again, before I had replied to that fully bullshit proposition:

Please help me

What.

Help *you*???? I'm the customer here. That you got faulty stock from the company isn't my problem. Your desire to make money and not lose it isn't my problem. Getting the glasses I want with minimal hassle is my only concern. If you can't do that, sorry, but I don't want to do business with you.

She claims in response,

I am asking you to choose an alternate style I will give you a more expensive frame

or just have the item you find shipped to my facility. I did this and I caused this mess

I will end up loosing my job over this.

If I'd believed that at this point (I didn't), I would have relinquished that notion as soon as I Googled these people. It turns out that they have one- to two-star ratings on every review site that mentions them, but for one that takes down negative reviews immediately at business' requests. How I found that out, we'll see shortly. In any case, "Becky S." is mentioned by name in all sorts of stories -- shipping people the wrong items and then charging a restocking fee (which isn't publicized clearly on their website), offering discounts like the one she offered me and then not letting customers apply them to frames they want, being sarcastic when customers tried to work out problems just like this, and so on. I doubt she's in any danger of losing (or loosing) her job, in any case, since this appears to be her and the company's standard MO. I bet she had a lot of grandparents die suddenly while she was in school, too.

Again, being clearer and more communicative than these people deserve, I wrote back,

I'm contacting my bank to get the money charged back since you've refused to honor my request for a refund. I have no desire to deal with you or your company further, on these frames or any. This is not a professional way to handle problems with an order, and I don't trust you or opticsfast to refund me the money on your own.

By this point, anyone would have said, ok, fine, full refund, here's when it will be processed. Anyone with a tiny bit of sense, let alone desire to succeed as a business, anyway. I thought "Becky S." must at least have fit those categories, because she first replied, simply,

Ok

but 23 minutes later, she wrote me again, saying,

What we have decided to do is to refund you the frame and send the lenses separate

the line items on the invoice allow that these are 2 separate charges hence we can ship the lenses UNCUT of course

To cut lenses into a frame is very easy every lab does it and you can of course bring your own lenses when doing a job

Really? You're really trying this? This is a behavior reported in reviews of this business online -- sending people items they don't want, and then, because they've provided goods, the person can't get their money back via credit card company or bank. Workable scam, although I can think of a lot pleasanter ways to spend a Friday afternoon that would give you at least as much money, like selling plasma. (If you've sold plasma, you know just how unpleasant an experience that is.)

I respond,

I already told you that's not acceptable. I am 100% convinced you're doing nothing but trying to scam me out of money for lenses I don't want, and I would be surprised if you ever had those frames in the first place. If you send me anything, you'll get the package back unopened. My bank's going to dispute the charge the minute it posts fully to my account and I'm so irritated with you that I'll probably use all my bored minutes at work to post this story to review sites all over the internet.

"Becky S." goes for another round --

I am not trying to scam you at all here are your lenses [she attached a photo of a lens and packaging material sitting on a desk]

I am very sorry that you think we are against you, they are not popular lenses that I bought for no reason.

I am trying to resolve this issue but you are not allowing me to resolve it

No, what I'm not allowing you to do is to try to force goods on me that I don't want and can't use. HTH.

This morning, while waiting for some laundry to go through, I did, in fact, go post reviews of Opticsfast.com to a few sites. One of them, TrustPilot.com, notifies businesses when they get a new review; "Becky S." leapt at the chance to get the one I wrote taken down, and if you go look them up there, you'll see that the only reviews that haven't been disputed by the company are positive (I'm not linking because I don't think Opticsfast deserves even the infinitesimal search engine boost). Other review sites have piles of negative, in many cases outraged reviews for these people.

She emailed me to tell me she'd had the review taken down --

I went ahead and cleared out the review you left I hope you don’t mind this is not fair of what you wrote as its clearly not what happened.

It was, of course, entirely accurate. I immediately forwarded the entire email chain to TrustPilot.com so they can see that; they may reinstate it, I don't know. There are a few others out there, anyway, with the same content, verbatim. I hope "Becky S." doesn't mind! Since refusing to refund someone's money when you can't give them what they ordered off your website is, you know, not fair.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to find these frames elsewhere, and, now that I'm gunshy, emailing places to ask if they can verify that they have a pair on hand in good condition and in the color I want. I initially found them at Coolframes.com, from whom I've ordered before, happily, but they're over $100 more expensive there. I'm toward the end of a paycheck, too, so I'll have to wait until Wednesday (payday) to order from someone else, anyway, because now I only have $200 in my bank account. The $320 I spent came from my parents -- I don't yet have money of my own to do things like be able to see well.

"Becky S." also sent me another new review, one of the very few she hasn't had TrustPilot.com pull, which is heavily ESL, possibly machine-translated, but positive. Because I care that someone else didn't get screwed over by these people, I guess? Oh, wait, they still have my money, so all that means is that they're capable of not screwing people over, occasionally, but are still opting to do so to me. I care about that to the degree that it makes me even more dissatisfied with them. She accompanied her forward by beating her thoroughly dead horse:

People post good reviews see? this one I got right after yours.

I am not sure why you are so mad at me trying to make things right.

Where will I sell your

Single Vision RS=-4.00 RC=-1.00 RA=20 LS=-3.25 LC=-1.25 LA=172 PD=61 LM=Sun-Sensitive Lens (Grey)

This is an expensive lense. You are going to buy it anywhere at the next location so why not already have it in your possession

and ask me for a discount on it?

It's a $100 pair of lenses, which she's now offering to me at a supposed but unspecified discount. (Incidentally: what is this, a street market in Mexico? Are we haggling? No. We are not. Grotesque behavior.) As prescription lenses go, that's crap! It's the cheapest transition-style one offered, not super high-index plastic, no UV projection, no anti-scratch or anti-glare coatings, nothing. Me and my barely-grown-up-type income aren't into high-end anything. Come the fuck on.

Primarily because it's my money and I choose to give it to businesses that have their acts together, and not to people who are either rampantly incompetent or rampantly dishonest, or both. Secondarily because I have no confidence that you'd even be selling me the right lenses, or that the prescription would be done correctly, because you appear to be either rampantly incompetent or rampantly dishonest, or both. And thirdly because I don't want to get lenses from you and send them to someone else to put into frames, or to get lenses from you, frames from someone else, and then have to find some local optician to put them together. This is the *best* you can offer me for my money. No thanks.

I already explained all this to you, but since apparently you aren't adequately capable of or interested in responding to customers' problems, I'm repeating myself for your benefit. You're very welcome.

And the internet is full of negative reviews of Opticsfast.com, many mentioning you personally. If I'd taken thirty seconds to google you, I would never have ordered from you in the first place. You have a one- or two-star rating on every review site that won't bend over and remove anything you ask them to take off.

You can refund my full purchase price, or you can get it charged back to you by my bank. Unless and until you do refund all my money, this will be the last time I bother to communicate with you.

This, too, was more effort than she or the company (using the term loosely) deserve, but this isn't me being a teacher; it's me being volubly irritated. "Becky S." still thinks she's in a position to bargain, though --

Will you remove your review and I refund you in full to undo whate each have done?

Highly unlikely.

As evidenced by this post.

I'm done dealing with these people; my bank can fight it from here. Or I may try the Better Business Bureau, since we're both in NY state. If you come across this post looking for reviews of Opticsfast.com, consider this a massive warning. There's a good chance they'll take your money, not provide what you ordered, lie to you, offer you fake discount codes, be dismissive of your position, refuse to refund your money when you ask (I still have nothing from them showing that they're actually refunding anything, even just the frames price), be peevish the entire time -- and still try to get you to do business with them. Stay very, very, very far away and keep your friends from ordering from these losers. The economy is chock full of people who are willing to do a good job for you -- be smart, find out whom you can trust, and buy from any one of them instead.