I'm not sure if this is the best place, but the mods can move it...
About a month ago I visited my ophthalmologist and was given a new prescription for reading glasses. I told him that I was going to order online for a change and he discouraged me telling me that he himself had yet to have a successful outcome. I of course knew better...
Anyway I found a thread here, which I can't find now and it lead me to https://www.goggles4u.com . Everything went fine at the start, so well in fact that I took them up an another offer for prescription sunglasses, so now I had two orders in play. When both orders arrived in Switzerland the fun stopped, the tracking system stated: Customs clearance exception. I contacted the shippers and was told the documentation was incorrect on both orders.
I then opened a complaint with customer services and all I can say is it must of been a bot because all it did was copy the comment from the tracking system into my complaint on a daily basis for about a week, despite me pointing out each time that they needed to contact the shipping agent and sort it. After that I opened
a complaint with PayPal and the same story for the last month.
This evening the tracking message went to: Goods destroyed on instruction of customs... and so PayPal have refunded my money, not a lot, about $90 in total, but still.
Oh and will all this was going on, I was invited to fill out a customer review which was actually on a paid third party site. Needless to say it was not good and their response was that basically I was completely wrong. According to the third party I can't respond because I have been blocked.
Avoid these people like the plague.
So if anyone can recommend a firm that they have done business with lately, I'd like to hear of it, as I still like to have another go.
Asian web sellers have this terrible habit of lying about the price of goods. I bought something that cost over €100 and they declared $15. Of course I was contacted by Swiss Customs wanting to see an invoice. I provided it and paid the import duties, VAT and administrative fee.
This took two weeks or so to sort out and the idiots didn’t actually save me a centime in costs. I sent a complaint to the seller but never got a response.
They are shooting themselves in the foot. I’ll never deal with them again.
I buy contact lenses online every few months, but I'd be a bit wary of ordering glasses. This is purely because once the prescription is made up the optician or assistant has to make sure the frame fits and is sitting properly, when I have this done it usually involves heating the legs. There's nothing worse than a frame that keeps slipping or ends up in your eyeline. Important for me as I have varifocals. How do you get the correct fit if you order online?
I've bought sunglasses with prescription on brille24.de twice for about 40 euro and was happy with it. It's good enough quality for sunglasses for a good price.
So the problem was that they didn't deliver and you don't yet know what the quality would have been. Do you have particular requirements or are they generic reading glasses?
I bought some reading glasses from an outfit called eyekeeper. I did receive the goods after 6 weeks. We're talking 5 pairs of el-cheapo reading glasses for roughly $21. In fact they are qualitatively very cheap (but do the trick). The ones I bought from my local Landi were slightly better quality for maybe a few franks more cost, so I don't think I'll repeat the online exercise.
For good quality glasses that I can be seen in public with I wouldn't go online; I'm thinking my next trip to Milan will yield some in the €50 range.
I have a few pairs from Zenni optical. Good price, look good and good quality. My first pair was stuck in customs, so after that, when I order them, I note that they need to include an invoice for customs.
Thanks for the feedback about what happened. As I've had good experience with them in the past, I just put in an order for four more pairs of glasses from goggles4u (cyber monday sale). Now at least I'm aware that there could be problems and I'll also be wary of recomending them in the future.
I get my reading glasses from Galaxus. After cataract surgery, the doctor said I just need any old pair of +1.5 diopter. 10 francs, so I bought a few pairs and they're dotted around the house.
Not wishing to hijack the thread but as most of you use computers for work, how do you manage with just reading glasses?
Before I bought any reading glasses, I got a pair of prescription "computer glasses". These are essentially bi-focal but with the bottom half set as reading glasses and the top half as screen glasses (with the focus being a little further away than that for the reading bottom half.
Do other people have these and if not, how do you manage.
The reason I ordered a pair of glasses online was because I wanted a pair of glasses I could wear when out and about without taking them on and off every few minutes to read a map/label/menu/camera setting etc etc.
I was told here that they would be about 600 CHF and I didn't really need them - except I did.
I'm only long sighted (after 40+ years of being short sighted, and about 5 of being both and so needing varifocals), so nowadays, I only need reading glasses if I'm working directly on my laptop. At my desk with a wonderful external monitor (Dell curved 34" 3840x2400 resolution, but 200% scaling), I don't need glasses at all. But I do have some filter glasses for when my eyes get tired, which work rather well.
I bought some varifocals that are reading glasses on the bottom and short distance task on the top, like a computer. They weren’t promoted as computer glasses, but they do the trick. I got mine from Zenni, they are ridiculously huge, glow in the dark frames and fairly inexpensive (certainly less than chf 100) sort of fun and I use them when watching TV, using the computer, sometimes in the kitchen, etc.
All my prescription glasses, and replacement lenses, come from them.
Usually delivery is in about 7-8 days for prescription glasses. Customer service is pretty good (e.g. last time I needed lenses for my flak jackets, and they replied within an hour or so to say that the curvature was too extreme).
Never had to pay customs (I believe that they pay that on their end, it's all shipped by fedex)
My husband has 2 pairs, he got them from our optician back in Scotland. He leaves one pair at home and the other at his office and finds it difficult to work without them.
I'm shortsighted (-1.5, -1.25) with some presbyopia; computer glasses (which I consider essential) are just my normal prescription with half a dioptre knocked off. I use them almost all the time except for driving.
I calibrated with a small optician's lens set I got from Aliexpress and then confirmed at the optician. I always buy at least one set of glasses from the optician since he's not going to remain in business just doing eye tests and I want the personal fitting. Spares I get from Visilab which also involves a fitting service.
I have these, and I'm not quite sure how I feel. On one hand, I spend a lot of time reading and in front of the screen; on the other hand, they lack my third 'distance' prescription, so I've paid CHF600 for glasses and I still need a second pair to walk around and drive. The bifocals for reading/computer make me dizzy if I walk around with them, although they're fine for work.
I priced out having the same prescription glasses made up in the UK by mail-order and found that I could get them for under CHF200 from a company that I've used before and trust. Next time, I'll get my prescription here and buy abroad.
That's exactly the problem I had! It was a nightmare. You really can't (and shouldn't) use them for anything else.
Now the "computer glasses" are just used for the computer and reading and the varifocals I got online are for everything else where I may need to look at things close up whilst walking around etc.