Med-Psych.com

As part of my quest to find the best place for buying contacts, I entered an order for 8 boxes of the Acuvue Oasys at Lens.com and the price showed as $19.99 per box, which is a decent price. But I went ahead and went to the checkout screen to find that shipping is an additional $7.95 which brings the price per box to $20.98. This is still a decent price. BUT I also noticed that they added an “Insurance and Handling” charge of $10.40. So it appears the final price per box is actually $22.28. One thing that I find ironic is that when you click the information about the “Insurance and Handling” charge they specifically state “100% price visibility - no hidden charges” as one of the reasons to show with them. They do explain the reasons for the insurance and handling charge include that they offer credit for ripped or damaged lenses and will reship a missing order. They also will give you a credit for returned and unopened lenses in the event that your prescription changes. I haven’t looked to see if the other online sellers offer these same benefits, but it sure seems to me that this would be a “hidden cost” since you do not have the option of waiving the insurance.

Looking around for coupons for lens.com, it does appear you can lower you price a little if you are spending more than $200 on an order (which 8 boxes of the Oasys does not quite reach) asI found a few online coupons for $5 off and free standard shipping. In the past there were some $15 off $149 for first time orders and free shipping for $139 orders, but those coupons appear to have expired.

Just as important as price is the customer support and service provided in getting the product shipped to you. Like previous places I reviewed, there are plenty of mixed comments. Some people report they got a great price and the product was shipped quickly. Almost as frequently, people reported absolutely horrible experiences. One person commented that his credit card was initially declined and so he called and cancelled his order. Two weeks later he received an email saying the order had in fact been shipped. He called customer support and they said he could just decline the shipment and they would refund the purchase. In the end, they did refund the purchase, but not the shipping cost. I don’t know if this was before they started charging for “insurance” but I would be upset if I returned the product and was charged a shipping fee when it was the company’s fault. Other people reported very slow shipping - taking several weeks for an order to arrive. Even on products that say on the website that they ship in 3-5 days sometimes won’t ship for more than a week. The company would not give any reason to the buyers why the delivery times are so much longer than what is on the website. I would be cautious with this company.

I was able to find some additional information on the Better Business Bureau website, but it is a bit hard to sort out. There is a VERY concerning letter from 2009 about Lens.com that can be read here. According to the letter, Lens.com was using the same post office box as JustLenses.com, ContactsAmerica.com, and 1-800-GET-LENS. The BBB gave the company an “F” grade, due to 158 complaints against them in the previous 36 months. The complaints were similar to what I pointed out above, with hidden charges, mistakes in the orders, and long delivery times.

The confusing part is that if you go to the current BBB page for Lens.com you will find they now have a rating of A+. They do still report around 130 complaints from the past 3 years, and they identify them as again being hidden charges, mistakes with filling orders, and delays in delivery. Interestingly, they say that the things that improved their score included the length of time the company has been in business, the LOW amount of complaints given the size of the company, the way the company resolved the complaints, and that the BBB has sufficient information about the company.

Of the 131 complaints over the last 3 years to the BBB about Lens.com, 83 were resolved with BBB assistance, 6 were not resolved with the customer not satisfied and BBB feeling there was not a good effort to resolve the problem from the company, and 42 where the customer was not satisfied, but the BBB felt the company made a good effort to resolve the complaint.

I take all of this to mean that the company has been making more of an effort since 2009 to resolve any issues, but it seems like they still have some problems. I'm going to keep looking for a better option.

I have had nothing but difficult experiences getting LENS.COM to ship products to me internationally. Their customer support, when it is reachable, is manned by some really low IQ people. They use USPS International, which might as well be pigeons delivering your mail. Never once have I received USPS mail here in Asia. Not once. It always gets lost. I'd rather buy my lenses locally for the extra 10-15 dollars than to pay and not get any package nor any help from customer service. Highly unprofessional.