Cheap Eyeglasses, Sure, But How Do You Get a Prescription?
6 Comments Published by Joel November 10th, 2006 in Grooming. Share This
I have no problem believing this dude got decent glasses for under $100—millions of people wear glasses and it’s not like the materials are horribly expensive. His blog post recommends two different online eyeglasses stores, Zenni Optical and Goggles4U. And the glasses he got in the mail (nearly a month after he ordered them) are perfectly wearable, with all the anti-glare and fancy titanium trimmings.
So I’m ready to buy, except… How does a person get their prescription for cheap? Every time I”ve ever gotten mine from an eyeglasses store they refuse to let me have a copy of my prescription and I have no insurance so I really don’t want to pay an optometrist to run the tests (that would ruin the savings).
Is there a sneaky way I can get my eyes checked without paying for it?
Eyeglasses Stores are for Suckers [3mew.Wordpress]
Update: Turns out my optometrist is required by law to give me my prescription. Looks like I’ll be making an angry call today. But the question stands!
You could always try a ruse. My company requires safety glasses to be purchased from their own vendor. I always ask for my perscription, so I can get the safeties paid for.
Hi. I’m “this dude” in the picture. I got my prescription via insurance, but as you’ve found out the law requires them to give you your prescription.
I’m not sure exactly the best way to get your eyes checked (although I’m looking into it now), but there have to be ways that coupled with the low price of these eyeglasses have many people coming out WAY ahead.
I’ll let you know if I find anything earth-shattering on the eye-test front.
BTW: I got my glasses in 12 and 13 days respectively. With the traffic Zenni is getting today, I have a feeling it might take a bit longer for this batch of customers. ;-)
Thanks!
Ira, you are SO correct…cause I worked for an optometrist after I retired.
WTF is this I’m hearing all over the interwebs about not being able to get your paid for RX for eyeballs?!
Bogus.
Totally.
I rock..and am so … OLD and retro.
Sorry for the cliches.
I’m just stunned that so many people don’t leave an eye doctor WITH their RX.
Cause … I dunno..that’s what you frickin’ PAY for?
Are these reading glasses for long-sighted people, or general wear glasses for the short-sighted? I’m long sighted and here in England I buy reading glasses in bulk – well six pairs at a time anyway – from what we call ‘Pound Shops’ where everything is (you guessed it) £1 – that’d be under $2 to you lot. I treat them as disposable and they are every bit as good as expensive prescription glasses, better even because I don’t care if they get broken.
By law does this mean that they have to give me my measurements of my glasses needed, not just the corrections my eyes call for? I went to a place today and paid 40 dollars for a eye exam, and I told them that I wanted to get my measurements so that I could look around at other places, maybe even the internet I hinted. They reacted harshly, and only gave me my corrections for my eyes (as if I was going to buy contacts) they told me the reason they won’t give me the glass fitting run-through is because they have “had alot of people use the internet and blame them when they get the wrong size” … by law do they have to give me additional information such as what size glasses I will need? I’m getting ready to just order a rough guess of these glasses, the cheapest 12 dollar pair I can find and see if they are worh the hassle. These guys wanted 170 dollars for the pair, and that is without UV/Glare protection, No transition, NOTHING… Crazy.
Has anyone bought progressive lenses via the internet? If so curious as to how this worked out?
G