Vision Express Opticians – Berkhamsted

Excellent service. Impressive equipment. Delightful staff.. No changes needed and that was reassuring knowing I was not pressured into buying new glasses. Highly recommend

Extremely disappointed by the overall experience of my wife and I on our visit for annual check ups last Monday.

Have found Vision Express Berkhamstead pretty excellent if a little too expensive for the last handful of years we have been customers.

Nhs funded check ups are still good but the results a little inconsistent. We then both paid an extra £6 each for the extra service more comprehensive check.

Don’t actually know what this is for but what my wife had tested and what I did was surprisingly different?

For example after I asked why I hadn’t had the peripherie test (flashing dots) suddenly I had to do it after my actual eye test.

The lady couldn’t align the equipment properly with either of my eyes and I was asked to move my head to some strange and slightly uncomfortable positions to get my eyes on target?

My wife, who is a Type 1 diabetic wasn’t even offered this part of the test which was a surprise as she had suffered from some background retinopathy in the past.

My understanding is that blind spots are a concern and this is the best test available to check them?
She was sent away with a piece of card with a 5mm grid on it and to to look at it from time to time watching for changes? Is this the same test in analogue format?

I declined the offer of new glasses as I don’t feel that the three pairs I have bought (All exactly the same prescription, make etc.) Over the last 18 months from VE Berkhamstead, are still absolutely fine for my eyesight today.

My wife however was convinced that new glasses would be a benefit to her.

Then the most disappointing part of this whole experience started.

Not only was she told the more expensive frames suited her better but she was upsold, in a very manipulating way, to go for more extra and probably unnecessary options!

The cost of over £130 for a pair glasses it turns out she doesn’t “need” was a very unpleasant surprise.

We paid this but requested cancellation and a refund as soon as we got home, the order was cancelled verbally but we had to spend 50 minutes driving to and from Berkhamstead again yesterday to physically get refunded back into our account?

This made us check the receipts for this and all our annual visits to Vision Express.

What an absolute con you and doubtless most other High Street opticians are.

Working my way through all the receipts I now realise that you deliberately made the printouts difficult to decipher?!

Hidden in plain sight are huge “fees” to talk to your lovely friendly staff!

As a business model it stinks of customer exploitation, especially as lots of your loyal customers are older or junior members of society!!

You should be thoroughly ashamed as a branch, as a Company and as an NHS trusted service provider.

Sort yourselves out and yes I have copied this to NICE, QCC if I get time I’m going to Trading Standards locally and nationally tomorrow and contacting Watchdog!

Good luck and hope you get more honest feedback.
Dom