Help with £1000 deposit refund

I was given the hard sell by John Margetts in August who failed to give me any information regarding the potential risks of Lens replacement. I was due to have my first eye done on 28 September but found OERML 3 days before. I contacted Sasha who gave me a lot of information and I cancelled my surgery.
Unfortunately I paid £5000 upfront for the procedures and was trying to get a refund but OE have a ridiculous 28 working day refund policy. Having broken their code of conduct a refund should be immediate. The BBC have been told of this…

To not even meet one of the surgeons before the operation is telling. OE's figures for 20/20 vision after this operation are leaving more than 3000 people traumatised or even worse. I feel so lucky to have avoided OE potentially ruining my eyes.

I threatened OE that I would picket the shop in Exeter and now have my full refund.
Many thanks Sasha
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admin: John Margetts story

After an initial consultation at Optical Express in February 2015 I made up my mind to go for Lasek. I paid £400 deposit on 10 June and £2150 balance on 15 July by credit card, and received a letter confirming my surgery date on 4 September 2015 at Bridgewater Wellness Clinic.

I had a consultation one week before surgery for tests and scans, and when I arrived for surgery on 4 September, after a few more tests, I was taken to meet the surgeon for the first time. Mr Muhammad Kazmi told me that he thought my corneas were very thin and that, should he go ahead and perform Lasek, he could not guarantee the result would last even for 5 years, and there would be no chance of secondary treatment due to my thin corneas. He advised that there was a 5% risk of severe dry eyes after treatment and suggested a better option would be lens replacement surgery, which would cost approximately £5000.

I discussed this with my husband and told the clinic that I would not proceed as I believed the risks were too high. They said that someone would contact me within 48 hours to arrange a refund, but warned me that the caller would probably try to persuade me to go for lens replacement. I didn’t hear from OE so I called them on 8 September and their salesman Andrew told me he’d arrange for someone to call me back.

Caroline called the same day and advised me that they could continue to manage my dry eye problem with drops and then reschedule lasek surgery. I pointed out the problem wasn’t with dry eye, but with my cornea being too thin. She said she would refer the case and call back, also asking if I would consider lens replacement as an option, which I declined. She rang back later and agreed that I would have a full refund within 28 working days, and again offered me the option of lens replacement surgery, and again I declined.

I questioned why the refund took so long and she told me that OE is a medical provider and subject to 'Medical Industry Protocol' and heavy auditing, that they never do instant refunds, but not to worry as I would "absolutely get all the money back”.

On 16 October, I rang OE who said that their accounts team "literally hold the purse strings” and would call me not later than 27 October. I said this was unacceptable as the 28 days were up and I wanted an immediate refund . She said this was not possible as OE had experienced a slight internal delay which they were "working through as quickly as possible".

I called OE again and Sandra advised me that my file was with their financial directors awaiting a final decision. She would not clarify what the process was, only that it was their “internal processes”.

I remained insistent and was then transferred to Kimberley who told me she was a customer services team leader and could only agree with what Sandra had said. I asked to speak to someone else who may be able to help. She told me they were experiencing an administrative delay and only the company secretary could authorise the refund. When I asked I was told his name was Graeme Murdoch and I asked to speak to him, but Kimberley said that he is not available to speak to patients and advised that I could email him at customer services.

All of this has left me feeling upset and outraged at my treatment.

Luckily I found this website and Sasha has given me some guidance and advice which I am now following. I have raised a complaint with my credit card company and am relieved to know that I am guaranteed to get my money back through them if not OE.
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admin: Angela recorded 6 phone conversations with OE. I listened to these last night and the content is truly shocking!

Caroline works in the 'Cancellations and retentions team' - that's ‘cancellations' to you, but ‘retentions' to OE, as this team do all they can to retain (keep) deposits and payments!

Caroline horrifyingly tells Angela that on occasions when surgery doesn’t go ahead they (cancellations team), "have a look and give a second opinion”, and repeatedly tries to persuade Angela to have lens exchange (RLE/NLR).

The fact that a customer service representative (sales person) is attempting to overrule and contradict a surgeon by advising a patient is unethical and totally inappropriate.

Kimberley claims that it is only Graeme Murdoch who is able to authorise a refund. This is a lie, as OE 'Head of Customer Care' Lynsey Shaw ( www.linkedin.com/pub/lynsey-shaw/42/b13/329 ) can approve a card refund in a heartbeat, as has been detailed in previous posts.

Caroline told Angela, "We're a medical provider so we get heavily audited… industry protocol…"!

This is utter nonsense, and the recordings will be provided to relevant organisations and interested parties.

Update in my refund:
I received my money after 3 working days from Tuesday when they took my card details.
Big relief.
Thank you Sasha!
My advice to other people:
Don't go to OE. If you go than do not make an appointment after the consultation .Tell them u want to think about it. This way u don't need to pay the deposit and u don't have the refund issue.

And last but not least think twice before u do surgery.
Don't let people rush you. And really think if u want to take the risk!

The OE policy of refunds is simply bs.

If you are due a refund the week OE staff are due to be paid forget it. This is where the internal delay bs kicks in.

Constantly changing cancellation period from 3 days to 7 then back to 3 again.

You do have to admire the brass neck.

I breath a huge sigh of relief when I read these stories, to think I nearly had that operation, thank you for sharing it makes me shiver to think they are behaving like this...it is disgusting Thank you for sharing....and I will never ever complainant about wearing glasses again!!!!

Hi
After complaining to OE on a daily basis about the 28 days I had to wait for the finally promised refund, last week they said they would count the 28 days from when I decided not to have the procedure! Remember they moved store, changed their phone number and made it difficult for me to contact them so I really don't know why they were making it seem like they were being so generous....as it is unethical if not illegal for them to keep your money for 28 days anyway, but they said it like they were doing me a big favour.....the woman I spoke to on the number Sasha gave me for Lynsday Shaw, who incidentally was never available but the women I got transferred to introduced herself as Lyn said I was lucky to be getting a refund as I had not cancelled in the 'agreed' cooling off period.....How dare they??? How many more times would I have to remind them that they moved office...etc etc etc...????
So moving swiftly on she said my 28 days would be up yesterday and I would get a phone call from the finance team who would load the £500 back onto my card, and no, they don't pay interest on the money even though they have had it for over a month....
No phone call as agreed last week so I called them, I left a message yesterday but no call back, I called again today and they have taken my card details and said it will show up in my account in the next five days....I asked them to make an express payment that could show up in within 2 hours but guess what? They can't do that.....I did point out that I had actually waited 29 days but they really could not care less.
I wonder where OE recruit their staff from, I would feel so ashamed working for them but they seem to have staff who 'toe the party line' regardless of the damage they are inflicting on people. Helps you understand how Hitlers Youth got started! Sorry if that sounds harsh but I mean it.
NEVER EVER EVER GET INVOLVED WITH OPTICAL EXPRESS, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE.
I have never dealt with a company who treat people as badly as I feel I have been treated, thank heavens I did not go through with the procedure

Update on my refund process:

I didn't receive the call back for the refund so I contacted Sasha after 60 hours and she helped me with several phone numbers.
I contacted one of those numbers yesterday and insisted to get my money back so I will receive a call back for the refund. Today got a call for the card details. She told me the refund will be processed today and by the end of the day I should receive an email too.
Let's see if that's true...
To be continued

Booked my LASEK with OE on Tuesday 6th Oct in the evening around 7:30-8pm at Shandwick Place in Edinburgh. Payed my £400 deposit over the phone with a debit card..

For various reasons called up on Wednesday the 7th to cancel my surgery and was told I would get a call back from cancellations within 48hrs. Asked about the cancellation period but they wouldn't advice me any further..

2 days later got a call back from OE cancelations dep and asked the guy to start refund process, after he gave me lots of small talk. He kept on asking me the reasons why I want to cancel etc and I simply said for personal reasons...
Obviously wasn't happy with that answer so he became very unhelpful and said he would call me back at a later time as I told him my phone battery was on 2%. Asked for an email to confirm he was going to start the refund process but he said this is against company policy. Sounds like total rubbish to me and scam.

On a side note, I had also gone to another lasek provider and they quoted me £4000 v OE's £2700, BUT my appt was with the surgeon who carries out the surgery and the prescription he gave matched my current glasses prescription whereas OE's differed.

Called my bank this morn and they advised me if OE haven't refunded within the promised 28 days then they can arrange a money recall.

Not sure where to go from here, but I am not prepared to wait 28 days...

Yes........we got our money back.
Never going anywhere near Optical Express ever again.
Good luck to everyone else out there trying to get there money back. Persevere, just keep pestering them.

Hello,

I choose Optical Express because I saw their advertisements.

I went for a consultation on 6 October in Maidstone and spoke to Heather who introduced the treatment. I told her I read an article about a woman who’d sued Optical Express. Heather said this story has 2 sides. I asked why and she said the patient didn't take her eye drops as instructed! So she blamed it on the patient.

When I went home I was confused: Why would Stephanie not use her eye drops?? It's her eyes!
Damn sure she used them.

I was not wearing my contacts as instructed and had no glasses so I couldn’t read anything that Heather showed me on computer. So she read it for me and said sign it.

Than she took me to Reshmi for the measurements. Everything looked fine. Measurements were all good just very weird to me that some measurements were really quick and kind of fake. Then Reshmi told me that the iDesign Lasik will cost me 4900 pounds!

I was shocked but I didn't show her. I did say that I am from the Netherlands and that its much cheaper there. So Heather arrived and said she will ask if they have a store in the Netherlands. She came back and said it had closed down.

So we went in a different room. She wanted to make an appointment but I said its too expensive, so she said she will discuss the price with head office. She came back after 5 minutes and dropped from £4900 to £3500, which seemed really abnormal to me.Then again further dropped the price to £3000 and asked for a deposit. I - crazy woman - said i will pay £1000 now and the rest over 10 months through Finance.

She made an appointment for me for the 19th October. Gave me a folder with a bunch of papers but told me not to read them until the day before surgery!

When I left I did not receive a copy of the finance plan or any copy of the paperwork that I had to sign digitally. They also didn't write who was going to do the treatment.

When I went home I did some research about iDesign and looked at the doctors in Bluewater who were doing the treatments ( there were like at least 15 doctors there!!). I found bad reviews about Optical Express and read about people not getting their refund. Unhappy patients.T his scared me because £1000 is a lot of money for us and I dont want to wear glasses for at least 10 years. So I decided to cancel my appointment.

Wednesday morning 7 October I called the store around 9.15 am and spoke to a lady and told her I want to cancel the appointment.
She tried to convince me to do it but I said no because I wanted time to think.
So than she said okay that Heather will call me back because she made the appointment in Bluewater. So than Heather called me back and I told her I wanted to cancel and so she said she understood and said that it will be cancelled.

I called customer services later that day several times to check if the appointment was cancelled and it was. Thats what they said. I asked for a confirmation email but that was not possible they told me. I was also not aware about the within 72 hours cancellation I found online.
So when I found out about the 72 hours cancellation period and nobody emailing a confirmation of cancellation I got doubts. Thats why I cancelled my appointment in less than 24 hours!
From that moment I called them 2 times a day just to check if it was really cancelled.and when I will get my refund.

I called my bank to take the money back because I was worried. They gave me an authorisation code with fax number to give to Optical Express so that they can cancel the transaction as nothing was taken from my account yet.

I called Optical Express customer service to give them this number and they said that somebody will call me back within 48 hours. Nobody called back until today around 12 pm. Bit more than 48 hours.

Meanwhile I went back to the store yesterday to get my finance papers. And see what I signed. I also called Hitachi finance company to see if they had received a cancelled finance.They said no its not cancelled you have to go back to the store and cancel it for you.

I went to the store and said I did not receive finance papers. and Eb helped me. She took me to a different room took my details and pulled up my finance agreement on her computer screen to show that there was no appointment made and so finance will be cancelled automatically.
At the bottom of this document it was written: ‘Likely write off.'

I asked if she could make a print and she said she had to call Heather to ask permission. She came back said sorry that's not possible ( I secretly recorded the moment she came back to see what she says)

I said you have it but you cant print it?? I left and then got a call from Heather explaining I will get my refund but she couldn’t send me a confirmation email.

Today I received a call around 1 pm from Robert. He asked why I cancelled so I made an excuse that I want to go on a holiday with my kids during half term so no surgery. He suggested they refund £800 and keep £200 so I can make another appointment. I said no, I want a full refund.

He said OK and he would arrange for a colleague to call me within 48 hours to take my card details for a refund. He said they didn’t usually do that but because I’d contacted my bank and had an authorisation code for refund they will do it differently. He didnt explain what was different, maybe faster than 28 working days??

Well lets see what happens now... I am very happy I found this site…
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admin: Stephanie Holloway was the woman Heather claimed didn’t use her eye drops. I spoke to Stephanie earlier and told her what OE were saying about her.
I believe Stephanie will be commenting later