Optical Express Lifetime Guarantee

Has anybody in Somerset, Devon or Cornwall had a bad experience with laser eye surgery through Optical Express? Please get in contact as I would love to hear your stories. Like many of you I am unhappy with (OE), on the basis of what I understand is a breach of my Terms and Conditions and surgery to my eyes!

Same problem as everyone else. Please help! My eye sight is as bad as it was before the surgery. I need further treatment and was offered this elusive lifetime aftercare and yet now, Optical Express don't want to know! What can I do?

Same here, had my treatment in 2010, paid over 3k. What made me choose optical express at that time was their after care package. I have had 2-3 further appointments since my treatment until 2012.

I now have some complications on my right eye and I been asked to pay for check ups and follow up treatment.

I have my papers and will pursue this legally.

Getting fed up with years of contact lenses and glasses, both myself and my wife Monica went for a free consultation at the Optical Express shop in Wolverhampton in January 2010. The assistant Anita handled our consultation and said that my prescription could be treated with Laser treatment and Monica's prescription could also be treated with Laser treatment even though she had astigmatism. Anita recommended the most advanced treatment at the time, which was Intralase WaveFront, but when we were told the price we had second thoughts and considered treatment abroad, a much cheaper alternative. However, what convinced us to go ahead was the free lifetime aftercare promise, so if any future complications we would both have the protection of free aftercare for life with Optical Express. This promise was the deal breaker.

We both had laser surgery at the Optical Express shop at Merry Hill on February 5th, 2010. After the initial euphoria that came with having almost perfect vision for the following weeks, both me and Monica experienced some complications. I had blurriness in my right eye and Monica suffered very dry eyes.

During the first year we were seeing the Optical Express opticians many times with provision of eye drops and other eye hydration medicines. Eventually in November 2010 I had to have an "enhancement" to my right eye as the optician said that some prescription had returned. So treatment carried on for a few years with both myself and Monica being continuously treated for dry eyes. Both of us were receiving free treatment and only attending Optical Express for eye check ups and taking the advice of the qualified opticians on when to return for our check ups.

We were never really told that our aftercare was considered at an end, since the optician told my wife that they could not effectively cure her dry eyes and to come back whenever she had any problems. Even with the Optical Express shop closing in Wolverhampton and the inconvenience of travelling to Merry Hill, we still went for our free checkups and eye drops. My right eye was getting progressively worse again with the last checkup in 2016. All these years we were both receiving free eye checks and eye moisture drops on demand.

In March 2017 I had to book another eye check up as the right eye was causing me problems. It was then I had the shock of being told that I had to pay for this, also the case for Monica. We were promised free lifetime aftercare and shocked that after almost 7 years of getting this to be told that we now needed to pay for eye checks and eye drops. I refused to pay for the eye check and the assistants at the Merry Hill store seemed quite sympathetic to our complaints and advised us to contact head office. We had retained both our Patient Information Folders that clearly had the Free Lifetime Promise statement included, however, I just wanted to experience first hand how head office would deal with my issue as it seemed that this would effect many thousands of other patients, many who might not have kept their documents.





My first call to head office was the following week, and they said that it would take maximum 28 days to retrieve our documents as they were archived in Newcastle. So after the 28 days passed, I again called the head office and was told that they had reminded clinical services again. I asked what that actually meant and the person said that she didn't know what was happening but she again wrote a reminder, so to me it seemed that no action had been taken.

I had to ring again a few days later, and again left holding on, but for only a few minutes - which was strange as I would normally be left holding for a much longer time. Then I was told that our T&Cs stated that we were only entitled to 12 months of free aftercare. It seemed that this was standard script that they would reserve for any patient querying this matter. I then asked for the email address to complain to head office, and scanned a copy of the Free Lifetime Promise from the Patient Information Folder that I had deliberately not mentioned during my calls to head office. That was on the Friday evening, and funnily enough I got a missed call on the Monday morning, followed up by an email asking to get back in contact with them.

When I told head office that I had both of our copies of the Patient Folder he asked for both hard copies to be sent for them to review and then they would determine if we were entitled to carry on with free aftercare. However, after looking at our records he did say we were in breach of the T&Cs of this lifetime promise as we didn't carry out regular sight test once every two years. It seems they now backtracked on the 12 month only aftercare treatment and went for our alleged breach of T&Cs. I do not think that this breach would have been an issue if we didn't have copies of our Patient folder. We were taking professional advice of the qualified opticians and how this breach does not make senses if we were receiving all these free eye tests? Would we really turn down free eye tests so that we are excluded from receiving free eye tests? Anyway, at this point i could tell that head office was reading from a script, even to a point that they said that they would write a letter within 20/21 days to give the reason that we are excluded from this lifetime promise as we did not have regular eye tests every two years. This is when we felt totally deceived and went on to seek further advice.

I look forward to highlighting our injustice and Optical Express retraction of their free Lifetime promise, which I believe affects not only ourselves, but many others.

Hello

I am after a copy of the lifetime aftercare guarantee. I was promised this but a couple of house moves means I have lost the original paperwork. I wonder if you might be able to help by providing a copy of it?

Thanks,
Nigel West
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admin: Pls email phone number

Yep, another one here who was lied to regarding aftercare service and I'm now in need of remedial work on my right as I it's so bad I fear I'm losing my sight in that eye.
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admin: Hi Gareth, pls email your phone number and I will call you info@opticalexpressruinedmylife.co.uk

On 4 March 2017, Craig Aynsley contacted me via OERML website...

'I have read a few articles via Twitter and your website and was wondering if you could assist or advise me in anyway? Basically I am in the same boat as most. I originally had my surgery carried out in July 2009 and had LASEK surgery on both eyes carried out. All was good and aftercare was good and had regular eye tests carried out free of charge as I had the FREE LIFETIME AFTERCARE PROMISE. (Which I have a copy of)

In 2013 my eyes started to deteriorate and was informed that I needed re- treatment. In November 2013 my surgeon recommended that I just get one eye re treated as I was under 40 and did not need glasses for reading, and if I got both eyes re treated then I may bring on early the need to wear reading glasses.(Treatment was for distance). I was informed that I could get the other eye treated later in life. So I went and got treatment carried out on just the one eye.

Throughout all of my aftercare 2009-2015 I never paid for anything, but in 2015/2016 I was told I would now have to pay for any future eye tests and any treatment.

I originally paid for my treatment via Hitachi finance and have enquired with them if I can receive a refund due to the breach of contract with the free lifetime aftercare. If you can help in anyway then please could you contact me.'

Before I spoke with Craig he also contacted Mel Hunter at The Sun newspaper. Mel phoned OE, and as a result they reinstated Craig's free lifetime aftercare.



I spoke to Mel last month and she told me that, although she's busy with many other consumer issues, she will consider publishing other complaints in the future about Optical Express.

And don't forget, journalists talk to other journalists, so it's worth emailing details of your complaint to Mel whether it concerns lack of aftercare, deposit refund refusal, or the fact that you've been left with damaged eyesight. mel.hunter@thesun.co.uk

I also recommend that you send your complaints to the many other newspaper consumer complaint columns. Not forgetting websites such as Money Saving Expert, Resolver, and many more.

If anyone has time to do some research and send me a list of links I will publish

Keep in mind that bad reviews on the internet will eventually come up in searches when people are considering surgery with Optical Express!

I've just forwarded some correspondence to Sasha on the back of my particular circumstances. I'm unable to find a similar case among the posts on here so here is a summary as best I can recall:

Dec '09: Consultation at OE York clinic. On the back of having only a slight prescription it was suggested that this could be rectified with anyone of a number of the laser procedures so opted for LASIK.

Jan '10: Surgery carried out at OE Leeds clinic - unsure of surgeon. Went straight home to bed, woke up the next day and all was well - despite my slight prescription the procedure had worked and I could see clearly without my glasses / contact lenses. The usual follow up appointments came and passed without issue.

10/12/14: Called into OE York purely in passing as i'd been struggling with general viewing through my left eye since early 2014. I was referred immediately to a laser clinic so opted for Nottingham as it was closer to my place of work at the time.

11/12/14: Optom at OE Nottingham unable to diagnose my problem. They struggled to get a reading for my left eye via their Petocam. Optom commented that it was the first time in 7 years of working there that she had encountered this issue. I was referred to a surgeon which was scheduled for 16/12/14:

16/12/14: Further attempts by the Optom to obtain a reading from my left eye with no joy. Surgeon did not see me as he had passed on a message to the Optom that early indications from my appointment on 11/12/14 was that I had something called Corneal Ectasia and I was to be scheduled for a Collagen Cross Linking Procedure (C3R) and had an appointment made by clinical services at OE Manchester Deansgate clinic for 13/02/15. I didn't even know what C3R was so had to google it!

06/02/15: Letter received from OE confirming appointment but that the clinic location had changed from OE Manchester Deansgate to the OE Trafford Centre.

13/02/15: Met surgeon (Dr. Antonio Uceda-Montanes) for first time and he advised that the best outcome I could hope for due to the deterioration was that i'd be able to wear a hard contact lens / glasses in future to aid my vision. I signed consent forms and it begun. C3R procedure carried out on the left eye. Told to expect pain once the anesthetic runs out. Once it did they were not wrong and the pain was excruciating but only lasted for a few days. Various follow up appointments made to monitor the progress and have a temporary lens removed - always at a laser clinic so not my local one in York.

04/03/15: Courtesy call from OE Clinical Services asking how the followup treatment was going. Advised that further FOC corrective procedures would be reviewed on a case by case basis. Temporary glasses / contact lenses would be FOC but any long term solutions would need paying for.

Following numerous back / forth appointments at Manchester / Nottingham my new surgeon (Dr. Mohammed Kazmi) was pleased with the progress of my left eye which was showing signs of stabilization (so not worsening). The right eye was also always checked at every appointment.

06/01/16: Further review of how the left eye was progressing at OE Manchester Deansgate and advised that INTACS, contact lenses, glasses and even further surgery were promising options. The surgeon spoke about the need to perform the C3R procedure to the right eye as it had started to worsen.

29/02/16: Contact from Clinical Services who confirmed that I had an appointment at OE Manchester Deansgate clinic to have the C3R procedure carried out to my right eye.

09/03/16: Attended clinic and the surgeon (Dr. Mohammed Kazmi) thought my appointment was just a routine check up and consultation about having INTACS! He agreed that the C3R procedure could go ahead so I signed the consent form and he carried out the C3R to the right eye as i'd expected.

Same process of early pain / follow up appointments continued throughout 2016. I ended up with a new surgeon (Dr. Jonathan Carr) who I met with in October '16. He said all was looking good and that i'd see him in March '17 where we would talk further about INTACS / further laser corrective treatment.

I phoned clinical services in February '17 to be advised that any further appointments would be £50 to see an Optom or £150 to see Dr. Carr. I wrote a letter of complaint to Clinical Services to which i got a reply by the director on 25/03/17 saying that my treatment terms had expired and that they were closing my complaint.

I had Laser eye surgery Feb 2015, really happy with consultation appointments up until the day I went to Bluewater optical express to get the treatment. A guy in his 40s was with his wife shouting that since having his surgery he was suffering with haze and has since had to wear glasses again which wasn't the most re assuring whilst waiting.

Since having the surgery I had to go back for follow up appointments for almost a month every 1-2 days. The reason for this was because my right eye had too many white blood cells which were close to my cornea and the optician was worried it could cause more long term issues/haze. This already caused a big inconvenience as I had to go to Bluewater some days, others to Ipswich, some to Colchester and one day I had to go up to Harley street to see my surgeon. All of this was of course included in the "after care" but I was the one out of pocket having to drive back and fourth for weeks.

Since then I haven't had to go back but I am left with the most frustrating issue that my eyes are really dry. My eyes are also very light sensitive and most importantly I just want a check up appointment to make sure that my eyes are OK.

I have been out of the country for over a year only to come home and arrange a well overdue eye check up only to be told that I have to pay £50 as the after care period is now up. I am really disgusted how they think that they are able to get away with this and would appreciate hearing from other people. I cannot find my terms and conditions, does anyone have one from around 2014/15 period?
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admin: Pls email your phone number and I will call you info@opticalexpressruinedmylife.co.uk

OE said people only need aftercare for 12 months after surgery so that's why they took it away. Doesn't make sense because if he "vast majority" dont need it what is the problem in leaving it there for the people who do need it???



www.aspokesmansaid.com/healthcare/storie...care-for-life-claims