Buyer Beware

Recently my mother was in need of a new set of glasses as her eye sight has slightly changed. We found a coupon to JC Penny in the mail and after making a visit to their eye doctor she ordered a pair.

A couple of weeks later they were ready for pick up and off she went. In tow was her father, my ninety four year old grandpa, to whom my parents are full time care givers.

Upon their arrival to the mall, my Grandpa found he was too tired to walk in. He said he would wait in the car for her. She hurried in (it was February and too cool for him to be out for long) to pick them up.

Upon placing the new pair on her nose for a quick adjustment, my mother discovered they were blurry. Dismayed she pointed this out to the sale woman who shrugged off her concerns and said her eyes would adjust. My mother contradicted her and said that these were indeed very blurry. Was a mistake made? The woman again down played the issue. My mother was worried about her father and unable to argue the issue further at that moment. She agreed to try them out over the weekend.

There was no improvement, of course, as the lenses had to be wrong. She went back to the store to ask for their advice and to have them fixed. There she found cold shoulders, belittling comments and snide whispers “She didn’t want them to begin with.” Confused my mother insisted that she did need new glasses, per the new prescription, and did want the ones she picked out it was only that she could not see. After much dispute she procured an appointment with the eye doctor to prove her case. The appointment was a couple of days later.

The disapproving eye doctor set her down in his office and proceeded to administer a stern lecture regarding her age and how her eye sight will be affected by her age. He assured her that he often sees customers with ‘buyer’s remorse’. She sat with her hands folded and listened until his conceited and assuming sermon was ended to his haughty satisfaction.

Upon his lengthy closing, he asked her to put on her previous glasses and to read to him a line from a page he gave her. She did this without trouble. He then asked her to read the same page while wearing her new glasses. She was unable.

At last he conceded to actually LOOK at the lenses of the new glasses and upon comparing them to her prescription this educated person found that the new lenses were indeed different from the ones she was to have been given.

When the inspection was complete and the discovery certain, did he apologize for his tirade? When he brought the discovery of this error to the sales person, did she apologize for her trite remarks and the berating she gave in response to my mother’s request for help?

No. Not one of them did. After four visits to the store, she will hopefully pick up the correct pair of glasses on the fifth. They did advise her that they will not charge the fee for expediting the replacement of the wrong lenses.

Buyer Beware! This place employs arrogance and meanness.