Last Tuesday, I was relaxing at my favorite coffee shop, enjoying a latte, when a young woman leaned over my table with a wide smile.
"Excuse me," she whispered, "where did you get those stunning cat-eye frames? They're absolutely perfect."
I laughed and told her they were the OEC CPO Ladies Optical Cat Eye Glasses, model O1164, in that gorgeous BlueClear shade. She immediately pulled out her phone to look them up, eager to get a pair for herself.
It was a proud and wonderful moment. But let me tell you, finding the true best place to get prescription glasses was a bumpy journey—one filled with blurry vision and wasted money.
We all want to save money, and glasses can be expensive. My first few attempts at buying glasses were total failures. I thought buying online was the answer—it seemed cheaper and easier. But cheap glasses often mean poor-quality lenses, and that’s a hard truth to swallow.
My first big mistake was getting caught in the "blurry glasses cycle." I sent in my prescription, received the glasses, and found the vision was blurry and incorrect. When I returned them, the company offered a sneaky deal: 110% store credit instead of a refund. It sounds good, right?
It’s actually a trap. If you accept the credit, you’re locked in. I ordered a second pair with that credit, and they arrived just as blurry. I was out of pocket and learned the hard way that store credit is non-refundable. If a company messes up your prescription twice, you’re stuck and you lose your money.
I ended up taking my beautiful frames to a local shop and paid another $200 just to have the lenses replaced. The technician there told me the original lenses weren’t even close to my actual prescription.
Verdict: Never accept store credit if the first pair is blurry. Demand a full refund for an incorrect prescription, and don’t reorder from a place that has already failed to meet your vision needs.
My eyes require progressive lenses, which have three different viewing zones in one lens: for reading, mid-range (like a computer), and distance. They’re complex, and trying to save money on them often leads to suffering.
I once found a great chain store with awesome customer service, friendly staff, and a strong social mission. But their lenses? Not so much.
The progressives they made for me were brutal. The viewing area was so narrow it felt like looking through a straw. I had to move my entire head just to read my phone, and my neck was constantly sore. I tried for a month but couldn’t adjust. That was $550 wasted.
To make matters worse, when I later tried to return the frames and switch the expensive progressive lenses for simple reading lenses, they refused, saying the frame style was too old. I lost the entire investment.
This experience taught me a vital lesson: