Deposit Refunds

admin: Within hours of posting here Mrs Nelson was contacted by OE and her £600 refunded
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Good afternoon,

I emailed the Cheltenham store today to cancel my procedure.

I paid a £600 deposit yesterday and cancelled today quoting my cancellation policy which states full refund with 3 days notice from booking.

I got lots of mixed messages about cancelling from them but finally got a reply after chasing from the store saying that my correspondence has been passed to the retentions department. I have a concern that they will try to delay just so they can try to keep some of my deposit. Any help or advice appreciated as I do not want to lose my money.
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admin: Pls send your phone number and I will call you sasha@opticalexpressruinedmylife.co.uk

Hi ok so I wrote earlier that my husband and I had paid £1000 in cash at the Bradford Optical Express store.
We cancelled within the 3 day refund policy but they then said it would be 28 working days to refund even though we paid CASH!
They fobbed us off until I contacted Sasha and followed her advice to the letter.
Lo and behold the emails started to come with a sudden interest in my complaint when I told them my husband and I would go and sit in the store if we didn't have our money back by Friday (today).
Cheques for the full deposit was delivered via courier yesterday and deposited into my account this morning.
Sasha knows what she is doing and I am so glad I found this site because she had my corner - Sasha you are the man!!! ?
I got a follow up call from a person from Optical Express today and he was a decent chap but I did tell him that unfortunately out of all the experience we have had with Optical Express the time he took out to make this phone call was the best bit of the whole process. Thanks for OERML and Sasha - you are a very important lady indeed, you are so needed by people just like me who have no experience of dealing with big companies who are quick to take our money but have no interest in customer service. No Trust Left.
For you Sasha ?

Got my money back today, thank you for your advice.
Jose

I paid deposit on 23rd and cancelled on the 31st Dec. I'm still awaiting my refund (£500)..is there anything you can assist me with??

Thanks
Mark Connah
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admin: Pls send your phone number and I will call you sasha@opticalexpressruinedmylife.co.uk

As of today I've been waiting 27 workiing days for my £1500 deposit for lasik to be refunded from the Milton Keynes store. If I go to the small claims court which one do I use because the head office is in Scotland but I live in England?

Cheers
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admin: Pls send your phone number and I will call you
sasha@opticalexpressruinedmylife.co.uk

Hello All
My husband and I are in our early fifties and both wear glasses for reading, mobile, etc but have almost perfect distance vision.
We didn't know much about lens replacement surgery but our son thought it would be a fantastic gift for us so he made an appointment for us on 7th January 2021 at the Bradford Optical Express store in Manor Row and said he would pay for it.
We went and an optometrist went through the details of the procedure and the side affects that could potentially come about after surgery.
We had the tests done and at each point we were asked to digitally sign on a black iPad type device. We’d had eye drops and didn’t see what we were signing but understood that we were agreeing that she had told us everything.
Both my husband and I have almost perfect 20/20 distance vision and have nice clear vision even at night and just need glasses for close up.
One of the questions asked was if we suffer from any anxiety or depression, which I thought was odd but said we don’t.
The optometrist said that the surgery would definitely fix our near vision but that my husband had dry eyes and they could become worse, and common side effects are that our distance vision might be affected with glaring lights, halos, starbursts, dim lighting, etc but this only lasts for maybe 3 or 4 months.
She said it’s more of a mind thing and you have to rationalise in your brain not to panic and to say to yourself that you have had surgery and that it will get better, and then your brain adjusts and it falls into place.
So we signed all the paperwork and each paid £500 deposit with a date for surgery at the end of Jan 2021. We paid cash and asked for hard copy receipts with a breakdown of the deposit and the outstanding sum to be paid 7 days prior to the surgery date. All well and good.
The same day I get texts that a leading clinician will ring and go through it all with me to check that we have both read the terms and conditions. So I did, but reading the side effects page made me very anxious realising that our vision is not so bad and it didn’t make sense to pay a lot of money to destroy and remove our perfectly good natural biological lens to replace with plastic lenses and risk the potential side effects that could happen. I don’t understand why these people push customers who have healthy eyes to do this.
I watched the surgery online and then I came across so many bad reviews, not only with the surgery but most with Optical Express!! This is when I realised why we were asked about anxiety and depression because many people must suffer this if the procedure is not what they were told they could expect. I know that not only would be in a state of breakdown but I would more than likely put my whole family through hell too (knowing the person I am) wanting it to go back to how it all was before surgery. I super panicked and thought maybe to have surgery in 10 to 20 yrs if cataracts occurred, but not now.
I called my husband and I explained my thoughts and that I wasn’t going to go ahead and his choice was his. We watched the surgery together later and looked at the reviews on Optical Express some really good and some not so good, some super scary actually. My husband decided to cancel because of the bad reviews for Optical Express alone!
So we went to the Bradford store on Saturday 9th Jan and talked to the same optometrist and told her about the really negative reviews we'd found, but she dismissed our concerns and said no-one ever prints their good stories as they are happy, but I said that there were good and bad stories and that we needed more time to look into it and research it.
We didn't even know the name of the surgeon we were supposed to be having but when she realised we were going to cancel the store manager (Faiza) offered to tell us but we declined.
We cancelled and ONLY THEN were told it will take 28 working days to refund our money and that head office would deal with it. I asked to be copied into the email the manager said she was going to fire off to head office about cancellation but she told me she would do it in front of me and someone would either call or email for my details as we paid cash.
Still waiting as no-one has been in touch and I have phoned at least 3 times every day but no one picks up.
Hmm what a mess and a scary thought if we had gone ahead.
Any advice would be helpful how I should go ahead to recover our deposit. Maybe going to the media? Or should we just go to the branch and refuse to leave until they give our cash back?
Thank you.
Mrs Hussain and Mr Rahman.
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admin: You need to make a complaint to the GOC as they had no right to sell you lens exchange without providing the name of the intended surgeon!
Pls send your phone number and I will call you
sasha@opticalexpressruinedmylife.co.uk

Hi Sasha,
Just checked my account and the refund went in over the weekend. Thanks again for all your help.
Sean ?

OE finally agreed to refund my full £500 deposit on 4th December. Said it will be paid in the next 7 working days. Thank you Sasha for your excellent advice on dealing with the issue and advising me to communicate with OE by email only. It took a while but worked a treat. Thanks again Sasha for your help.
Sean

Will update again when refund is received.

Keep up the good work.

Hi there,
On September 19th I had a consultation at Optical Express in Nottingham with regards to having eye lens replacement surgery. A consultant called Amy performed several tests on my eyes and after having an eye vision test with a male consultant I was returned to Amy who asked if I was interested in having the surgery. I said I was interested and immediately she wanted me to book a date for surgery. I said I would need to speak to my employer to see when I can get time off. She then kept pushing for me to book a date saying the appointments go really quickly so I booked for the 10th November because she said they are really flexible if I need to change the date. So I was asked to pay a deposit for the surgery which I did and I was given two copies of the terms and conditions to take home and read when I get the chance and bring one back on the day of the surgery. The following Saturday the 26th of September I called Amy to cancel the surgery after reading lots of bad reviews online and she said she would call head office and cancel. She also said that I might not get all the deposit back due to terms and conditions which I replied, I haven't signed your terms and conditions so I want the full amount refunded. I then waited until October 20th and called Amy again who said she would email head office to see what was going on. Didn't hear anything back from Amy so waited a couple of weeks and still no response. On November 18th I rang the Nottingham branch and spoke to the manager Sharon to put in a complaint about Amy. I explained everything to her and she said the same about the terms and conditions. I explained that I hadn't signed any. She then said that because I paid the deposit that I had agreed to the T&Cs. I told her Amy did not explain that to me. After telling me she would speak to Amy and call me back the next day, I wasn't surprised the call never came.
Any advice would be much appreciated.
Thanks
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admin: Send your phone number and I will call you
sasha@opticalexpressruinedmylife.co.uk

I attended the Optical Express clinic in Derby for a free lasik consultation last Saturday and pressured into paying £500 deposit there and then!
Having read loads of horror reviews all over the internet I have decided to cancel.
The surgeon, Dr Muhammad Kazmi, whom I was booked with, was claimed to have a 100% satisfaction rating. However just 5 minutes of internet searching turned up two negative reviews of him!
When I called to cancel I was told I would hear back. However I am yet to hear anything.
As a student, even £500 is a lot of money! I'm very glad I haven't forked over the remaining £4690 they wanted.
What should I do?
Thanks, Toby
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admin: Like most OE surgeons, Kazmi has had many legal claims brought against him by his damaged patients. Send your phone number and I will call you
sasha@opticaexpressruinedmylife.co.uk