The man's side of it!

The next day after we purchased our glasses, Cassie and decided to cancel our order. We felt we were taken advantage of, and misled by the advertising at America's Best Eyeglasses. So after discussing our options Cassie called them up and canceled our order. Cassie told them we would be in later that day to pick up or prescriptions. Cassie waited out in the van while I went in to take care of business. On the way in I had a thought to try negotiating with them to get a discount and if that didn't work then I would just get the prescriptions and leave.

I entered the store and stated my business to the salesperson at the counter. She immediately said she had to get the store manager to help me and left. Oh oh! I thought. I'm going to get hassled. But the manager was very nice and sorry that we had to cancel and got the paper work to start the process. She asked me why I was canceling and I told her that the ads were very misleading. Based on the ads we thought we could get 2 pairs of glasses for $99.00. One for Heidi and one for me. Then when they explained that it was 2 pair per person we were going to get on pair of glasses and one pair of sunglasses for each of us. After picking out the frames we liked and getting measured the optician started to come up with price. "Yeow!" I said. "What happened to the 2 pair for $99.00 you have advertised?" The Optician said " Your glasses are progressive bifocals that costs more!" "Heidi's are high index and that costs more!" "The advertisements are for regular glasses only." To the manager I said. "Well we thought we could afford them, but when we got home and checked our finances we found that we couldn't." I told her that Cassie and I are both disabled and have no insurance. Neither does our daughter. We were hoping to use our Caremark discount card here to save some money, and get the glasses at the advertised prices. We were told you didn't accept discount cards.

The manager asked how much the discount was for and I told her 20%. The manager said she didn't want to lose a customer and would we take the glasses if she gave us the discount? I said the price was still too high but if we dropped the 2 sunglasses and she gave us the discount we could afford that. "Done!" She said. The price worked out to about a third of what it would have cost us and Cassie and I were very happy. The ads are still very misleading and we're still not happy with that but at least we will be getting the glasses at an affordable price.

There's a lesson here. Don't take prices at face value. Try to negotiate for a lower price or a bigger discount. The markup on glasses, furniture, clothes and many other items can allow some store managers leeway to lower their price and still make money. I am going to try this more often.

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Yea! Glad you were able to work it out - that was ridiculous!! Good negotiating, and good lesson!