optical express refusing to refund deposit

gregor2020

Hi

I paid a deposit of 200 euro for laser eye surgery to Optical Express in Ballsbridge and was told at the time that I could cancel at any time for a refund.

I then cancelled the appointment about a week or so before surgery was due and asked for my deposit to be refunded.

I was refused - they said you can only get your deposit back if you cancel within 72 hours of paying the deposit.

The optical express terms and conditions state

If you cancel a booking for treatment less than 72 hours before the day of treatment, no monies paid by you will be refunded.

If you cancel a booking for treatment outwith this period, your booking fee will be refunded. If you cancel a booking for treatment outwith this period and your cancellation is made within 72 hours of you making your booking, all monies paid by you will be refunded.

If for any reason we have to cancel a booking for treatment, and an alternative booking cannot be arranged, your booking fee will be refunded.

Now my point is that

If you cancel a booking for treatment outwith this period, your booking fee will be refunded

means that if I cancel more than 72 hours before surgery is due to take place, your booking fee should be refunded. And a booking fee is money paid to make a reservation. i.e. deposit. So their terms and conditions say I should get my deposit back.

However optical express are trying to say that because it says

If you cancel a booking for treatment outwith this period and your cancellation is made within 72 hours of you making your booking, all monies paid by you will be refunded.

means that I don't get my deposit back. Which seems like a logical absurdity to me.

I don't see how getting "all monies" back means that

"If you cancel a booking for treatment outwith this period, your booking fee will be refunded"

doesn't mean anything. A booking fee is a booking fee.

I was just wondering if anyone had any similar problems with optical express and how did they resolve them?

They just seem to be giving me the run around.

What should I do? Take them to court?

thx

dudara

When you paid the €200, did you get a receipt? If so, how does it describe the €200?

gregor2020

The only receipt I got was from the credit card terminal - that and the document of terms and conditions.

paul71

gregor2020 wrote: »

The only receipt I got was from the credit card terminal - that and the document of terms and conditions.

Its a lot easier now we know you paid by credit card.

Just tell your credit company to do a chargeback. The responsibilty then shifts to optical express to prove that you received a service for your payment.

dudara

The question here is what part of your €200 was the booking fee? That's the unclear part. They should clarify that for you.

gregor2020

OK so I just wanted to come back to this thread and let you know that I finally got my 200 euro back from the credit card company - just today I got the letter.

I did call the credit card company as you suggested but they said that they wanted to see

1. The terms and conditions that I got from Optical Express.
2. Proof from Optical Express that had cancelled.

So I called Optical Express several times over the next few weeks and emailed them and they were always "just about to" send me proof of cancellation.

So a few weeks later I called the credit card company again and explained and they said just to email them with the terms and conditions and a cover letter explaining that I couldn't get proof of cancellation from Optical Express.

It's a slow process because although I can email the credit card company they have to write back to me.

So a long while later they wrote to me to ask me for a copy of the invoice I received from Optical Express. I didn't have one so I called/emailed them back to tell them this.

And finally today I got the letter that I will get my money back via chargeback.

So a big thanks to everyone on this thread for their help - it took 3 months but it did work.

As for Optical Express - their customer service stinks. They really are from the "screw you we've got your money now" school of customer service. They point blank refused to honour their terms and conditions - and when I pointed this out to them the response was really not much short of a wee glasgow hard man telling me to feck off they've got my money.

More than that, after they had refused to refund me my deposit, they them proceeded to bombard me with call over the next few months with the angle "well, we've already got some of your money and you aren't getting it back - so why not give us some more!".

tbh if I hadn't have got my 200 euro back I would never have used Optical Express again anyway. Buyer beware!