Clearly Contacts COD scam

[PrettyMao]

So, Clearly Contacts were advertising a pair of free glasses if you used a promo code for the city of Calgary...

I went to their site and filled out my information and continued on. However, the promo code did not work. No problem, I just won't confirm the purchase and close the browser... Well, little did I know that by clicking the "Continue" button on their page that takes you to their "confirmation page" is the actual confirmation, because by clicking on "continue" it takes you to a page that says something like "Your order has been shipped, and you can pay later. As Clearly Contacts is the only place that lets you buy now and pay later."

Unfortunately, I did not see this page at the time as I closed my browser thinking I did not actually order the glasses since I didn't click on your typical "confirm payment button" that most online stores have.

So now I have this pair of glasses in my house that I particularly didn't want due to their underhanded business practices.... They say have to pay in 15 days or suffer 18% interest.

Any ideas on what I should do? Swallow the shipping fees and send them back?

Anyone else ever used these people and have this problem? I've looked through the pages leading up to the point where I supposedly confirmed my order and there was no warning that I was actually making a complete purchase by clicking on "Continue"...

This tactic has really pissed me off...

[Jon Lai]

So why'd you accept the order? Return to sender...

[PrettyMao]

So why'd you accept the order? Return to sender...

Good point....

It was Fedex, they just left it on my doorstep... I'll return it to them I guess...

Thanks...

[zoolander]

Yes, that is one of the beefs people have with their website.
Pay for the glasses here (https://www.clearlycontacts.ca/epay-sign-in.ep) if you like them. $38 plus S&H is still pretty cheap.

OR

When Returning Items: We know it's sometimes necessary to exchange or return an item so we make it easy. Simply follow these steps:

1. Call or email our Customer Care Department at 1-866-414-2326 or customerservice@clearlycontacts.ca.
2. Let us know the reason for your return and what you would like us to do. Do you want us to exchange the item, or issue a refund or other (please explain)?
3. Secure your merchandise in the original packaging, if available, or any sturdy box, and enclose your note detailing the reason for the return. Please DO NOT return contact lens boxes in an envelope.
4. Please include your name, address, and phone number (specify day or evening) where we can reach you in case we have questions. Customers are responsible for the return postage unless it was our error.
5. Return the item by regular post to the address below. That's it! Please allow 2-3 weeks for your store credit or refund to be issued.
6. Mail all contact lens returns to:

Clearly Contacts
320 - 2985 Virtual Way
Vancouver, BC, V5M 4X7

If you call them and explain your situation, maybe they will send you a free postage slip (I got one when they sent my glasses with the wrong Rx). If enough people complain, they won't make it so easy on their website to confirm an order.

Keep an eye out on the next freebie. It is usually the first 500 pairs. Both times, this and the Nov promo, it has been about a 4 hour window by the time it's posted here to get in on it.
Good luck

[magickam]

Same thing happened to me, I didn't know they had a "buy now, pay later" policy so I was kinda surprised the day I received a pair of glasses at my doorstep( I thought the order was cancelled because I did not pay).

I wrote them an email telling them I was returning the glasses and here's what they answeredThank you for your recent email to Clearly Contacts Inc.



As long as the glasses are sent back in the same condition they were sent to you in, you are able to return them.



Using the shipping label attached, please have your glasses sent back to “Clearly Contacts Inc. 320 -* 2985 Virtual Way, Vancouver Bc, V5M 4X7.” Please ensure that your order number is clearly marked on the box being returned.



Once received we will proceed accordingly.



We apologize for any inconveniences this may have caused. If you have any further questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Didn't have to pay any shipping, because of the "shipping label attached".

[spazzamatic]

the same thing happened to me. i called and complained and the sales lady gave it to me for free =D but this was back in november. for the other free promo

[darkprince]

I love them! they're awesome, very quick. Got it the contacts the next day.

[darkprince]

This is definitely not a scam, you attempted to place a order and they shipped you a product and expect you to pay for it if you're going to keep it. They don't collect on shipping the courier does, so there is no scam here.

[DLFB]

I love them! they're awesome, very quick. Got it the contacts the next day.what information do they need or you need to order your contacts?

I know my power,PD, etc for eyeglasses, but is it different with contacts?

[Impossibles]

I agree, the purchase system is a little wierd.

However, when my GF accidentally bought contacts she didn't mean to, she just called the phone number listed and 2 minutes later the order was cancelled. Probably took less time than it took to make a thread about it.

On the plus side, the operator she talked to advised her to search the internet for the cheapest price from any obscure website, and we'll match it. She found some ridiculous sale from a US site and they matched it (after exchange rate) with no hassle whatsoever. 2 days later, contacts at the door. Pretty great system.

[darkprince]

what information do they need or you need to order your contacts?

I know my power,PD, etc for eyeglasses, but is it different with contacts?

I dunno really i dun wear contacts but You'll need to get the prescription information that your doctor gave you i think just the powers and diameter or stuff select which contacts you want and bingo you're done. They offer over night shipping, so we got them in 24-48 hours later courier drops off the contacts

[tabrisfreewill]

So this company is practically shipping their products to anonymous people without having them pay first? What prevents people playing a prank on them and completing thousands of orders shipping all over Canada?

Is it only me or does everyone thinks that this company will soon go down faster than a cheerleader in prom night?

[user01]

So this company is practically shipping their products to anonymous people without having them pay first? What prevents people playing a prank on them and completing thousands of orders shipping all over Canada?

Is it only me or does everyone thinks that this company will soon go down faster than a cheerleader in prom night?

That's what I thought too... :razz::razz::razz:

[watodo]

do u honestly think the company never thought of that? give me a break

[Cheap Cat]

what information do they need or you need to order your contacts?

I know my power,PD, etc for eyeglasses, but is it different with contacts?

You should be purchasing contacts from them only as a refill. If you wear contacts, the information needed to order will be on the box. Contacts are usually at a lower power than glasses because the lens is directly on your eye. I know that I see really well with contacts so they drop my strength even more than usual so I get my doctor to write a contact prescription along with an eye glass prescription.

[Hugh Jass]

You should be purchasing contacts from them only as a refill. If you wear contacts, the information needed to order will be on the box. Contacts are usually at a lower power than glasses because the lens is directly on your eye. I know that I see really well with contacts so they drop my strength even more than usual so I get my doctor to write a contact prescription along with an eye glass prescription.

My contact and glasses prescription are the exact same.

But one definitely has to get contacts 'fitted' by a qualified person. They measure your eyes aswell as testing your vision.

[Cheap Cat]

My contact and glasses prescription are the exact same.


From what I gather online, the difference is an issue when your prescription is more than +/- 4, which unfortunately, I am. They add .25 for each power of 2 over +/-4. Typically you will have the one prescription and they will make the adjustment based on this formula. In my case, my contacts need to be adjusted more so I get it written on my prescription as the contact lens people don't seem to believe me. I would always end up getting lenses that were too strong and have to go back to get a lower powered pair.

[haites]

I have to agree, that seems pretty sneaky and underhanded. I usually click through hoping just to get a shipping estimate since most online stores don't advertise that up front.

[darkprince]

I have to agree, that seems pretty sneaky and underhanded. I usually click through hoping just to get a shipping estimate since most online stores don't advertise that up front.

Lol your Fcking Eye Doctors are scammers!

They charge you 80-120% mark up of from what you can get at Clearly Contacts sell them for.

[Kommander_KornFlakes]

This tactic has really pissed me off...

I'm with you, that's sneaky, but why did you press "continue" if you were not continuing? You should had just closed the browser at that moment.

[xansmommy]

I had an unintentional order with them once, they sent me a refill email and I clicked on it, and was then trying to check a "final" cost and ended up with a confirmation email. I called them right away to cancel. The poor CSR said he gets like 10 of those calls per day but the powers that be won't change the site.

Laura

[L505]

This is definitely not a scam, you attempted to place a order and they shipped you a product and expect you to pay for it if you're going to keep it. They don't collect on shipping the courier does, so there is no scam here.



It is in fact borderline "shady" business practice. They bind a non official contract without any signature and to earn interest on a customer without the customer agreeing to that interest charge. No 100 percent disclosure that one COULD be charged interest on the glasses. Also no clear disclosure that the order is 100 percent going through AFTER that little click of mouse button. If it was truly clear disclosure then people would not be here complaining on the forums!

If it were extremely clear and they clearly laid out the interest terms, just like how when you sign up for a credit card or a loan, then it would not be shady.

I am happy with my order from them, but not happy with their shady business practice. I know what they are doing - they are catching lazy customers that do not have the patience to return the items, and they are catching lazy people who just pay the interest/forget and pay more later due to the situation they were shadily brought into. Fear, by collection agencies is also used as a shady tactic to force people to pay interest that they did not clearly agree to with 100 percent disclosure.

Take note that if their business practices were not shady, there would be NO confusion at all here. Customers would not be here on the forums asking questions about their business practices! But people are here and therefore it is obvious the system that clearlycontacts uses is not really a good system. It could be tweaked, though, and easily improved!

Bad customer word of mouth travels FASTER than anything... so I do not see how this will help them in the long run. Again, I am happy with their service myself, but I suspect they will have issues.

99 percent of other shopping websites that customers use, never act this way - and 99 percent of store websites require a credit card number before order is shipped. To make a website completely different from 99 percent of other stores is also shady, because the customer is used to those other "standard behaving" internet websites. One could easily get tricked into a website that is cleverly designed to con the customer into a sale. Even if this "con" is legal, and even if ClearlyContacts did not intend it to be shady or a "con". it will STILL cause bad news to travel fast about the company.. and bad news as I said travels fast! So it is of the best interest of ClearlyContacts to reconsider their shopping cart system and disclosure, even if it is not legally a "scam"!

[HowEver]

What "interest" are you talking about?

Clearlycontacts sent me an invoice after I placed an order. I haven't paid it since there was an error in the prescription; not theirs, my eye doctor's error. clearlycontacts said "send them back." And *they* paid for the return, and for sending replacements to me. They said, "You're covered, we'll pay for all that."

There is no hint that there is any charge beyond the first invoice; in fact, they have confirmed it.

So unless you ordered glasses, and received them months ago, and didn't pay, how are you getting charged interest, and if you did, how is it unfair??

Post the dates you ordered, were billed, and the amounts, including the "interest."




It is in fact borderline "shady" business practice. They bind a non official contract without any signature and to earn interest on a customer without the customer agreeing to that interest charge. No 100 percent disclosure that one COULD be charged interest on the glasses. Also no clear disclosure that the order is 100 percent going through AFTER that little click of mouse button. If it was truly clear disclosure then people would not be here complaining on the forums!

If it were extremely clear and they clearly laid out the interest terms, just like how when you sign up for a credit card or a loan, then it would not be shady.

I am happy with my order from them, but not happy with their shady business practice. I know what they are doing - they are catching lazy customers that do not have the patience to return the items, and they are catching lazy people who just pay the interest/forget and pay more later due to the situation they were shadily brought into. Fear, by collection agencies is also used as a shady tactic to force people to pay interest that they did not clearly agree to with 100 percent disclosure.

Take note that if their business practices were not shady, there would be NO confusion at all here. Customers would not be here on the forums asking questions about their business practices! But people are here and therefore it is obvious the system that clearlycontacts uses is not really a good system. It could be tweaked, though, and easily improved!

Bad customer word of mouth travels FASTER than anything... so I do not see how this will help them in the long run. Again, I am happy with their service myself, but I suspect they will have issues.

99 percent of other shopping websites that customers use, never act this way - and 99 percent of store websites require a credit card number before order is shipped. To make a website completely different from 99 percent of other stores is also shady, because the customer is used to those other "standard behaving" internet websites. One could easily get tricked into a website that is cleverly designed to con the customer into a sale. Even if this "con" is legal, and even if ClearlyContacts did not intend it to be shady or a "con". it will STILL cause bad news to travel fast about the company.. and bad news as I said travels fast! So it is of the best interest of ClearlyContacts to reconsider their shopping cart system and disclosure, even if it is not legally a "scam"!

[brunes]

What "interest" are you talking about?

Clearlycontacts sent me an invoice after I placed an order. I haven't paid it since there was an error in the prescription; not theirs, my eye doctor's error. clearlycontacts said "send them back." And *they* paid for the return, and for sending replacements to me. They said, "You're covered, we'll pay for all that."

There is no hint that there is any charge beyond the first invoice; in fact, they have confirmed it.

So unless you ordered glasses, and received them months ago, and didn't pay, how are you getting charged interest, and if you did, how is it unfair??

Post the dates you ordered, were billed, and the amounts, including the "interest."

This is true, the same situation happened to me.

You are only out your original shipping. They will email yo u a shipping label for the return amount.

[L505]

What "interest" are you talking about?

Clearlycontacts sent me an invoice after I placed an order. I haven't paid it since there was an error in the prescription; not theirs, my eye doctor's error. clearlycontacts said "send them back." And *they* paid for the return, and for sending replacements to me. They said, "You're covered, we'll pay for all that."

There is no hint that there is any charge beyond the first invoice; in fact, they have confirmed it.

So unless you ordered glasses, and received them months ago, and didn't pay, how are you getting charged interest, and if you did, how is it unfair??

Post the dates you ordered, were billed, and the amounts, including the "interest."

You clearly do not know how to read. My post explained double, triple times that I personally was satisfied with their service. Re-read my post. The customers do not like their website. People complain about it. Does not matter if smoking is legal, that does not mean many people like smoke around them. Re-read the post. This is about a badly designed website that appears to be a borderline scam/con even if it is not intended as one. Why? because they do not disclose extremely clearly that they will be shipping the item after you click that little button there. They may say so in some hidden area or page but they do not make it clear enough, and that is why people are complaining. If it were a clear message and clear order process they would not have all these complaints. And yes, people have been charged interest - not me, but other people who paid and then wondered why they were getting interest later on. That is another topic all together.

For a lazy customer to have to go to the post office, and ship back some glasses that were ordered by mistake and or because of TRICKS used by a company.... this is not going to go over well. Someone's time to drive to the post office and repackage it up might be worth $90, $200. Someone might even forget to send the glasses back on time and this is EXACTLY why they earn money on interest, just like credit cards where people forget to pay. But with credit cards it is clearly disclosed to you up front before you sign up for the card. With this store, it is a trick - and if it is not intended as a trick, THIS IS WHAT we assume it to be, hence the title of this post - scam. Customer's first impression. I personally am not affected by this because I know how this trick works. Other people will be pissed.

[L505]

This is true, the same situation happened to me.

You are only out your original shipping. They will email yo u a shipping label for the return amount.

You are only out your original shipping? Yeah possibly they jack the shipping price up a bit and then they earn money on the handling fee, another trick used by internet businesses. But even if someone is ONLY out their original shipping - that is a lot of fuel and money to waste for a small pair of glasses.

On another note, a company that wastes this much money on return ExpressPost labels to correct the mistakes... this is ridiculous. Maybe costing them thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars per year for error orders that they could have corrected without having to ship it across the country. They could trap these errors earlier and waste less fuel shipping back and forth. NOT all the errors in orders need to be SHIPPED to the customer! Some errors can be corrected BEFORE YOU PAY. But this company does not even allow you to pay, they ship the errors to you, and charge handling, and then they waste thousands of dollars each year on all their FREE return labels? Efficient business model? not really. Environmentally friendly? no.

I have nothing against their customer service, but their business plan is silly, and screwy. Imagine you walk into Walmart, and as soon as you pick an item off the shelf walmart jumps out at you on the overhead speaker and says... HI, YOU JUST BOUGHT THIS ITEM BECAUSE YOU TOUCHED IT. SORRY, YOU TOUCHED IT. YOUR FAULT. YOU CAN RETURN IT BUT YOU WILL PAY INTEREST IF YOU DO NOT RETURN IT WITHIN 30 DAYS. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO PAY FOR ITEMS AT WALMART, YET. WE WILL CATCH YOU SOMETIME LATER! AND IF YOU FORGET, WE EARN INTEREST! THANK YOU FROM WALMART. YOU MAY NOW LEAVE THE SHELF AND TOUCH OTHER ITEMS.

What kind of silly business plan is that? make the customer pay for the item at the checkout, like a regular business! MOST WEBSITES OPERATE PROPERLY AND NORMALLY. THIS ONE IS SCREWED, CROOKED, ODD, AND WORST OF ALL NOT LIKED BY LOTS OF CUSTOMERS!

Next thing you know, people will be buying cars on the internet without paying for them, and then shipping the car back across canada FOR FREE if they do not like the smell of the leather seats. What do you get for free? Well one thing you get, is the business goes broke a few years later when it figures out how stupid and moronic its business model was.

[DarkAbyss]

Yah I agree. The first time i tried to order something from CC, i tried to put a coupon only to find out it didn't work and that they placed the order for me already. That is they don't even show you the actual cost before they place the order, so you don't know what you are actually paying since you don't know if the coupon worked or not. I e-mailed the company a couple minutes later and they cancelled it.

I guess alot of people complained because I ordered something a week ago, and now they have an actual page that asks for confirmation before placing the order.