Coastal Contacts

Full review
Avoid this online retailer. Coastal Contacts charges your credit card BEFORE they ship your lenses, then is very slow to refund your money when they cannot ship them out.

Yesterday, I placed a re-order of the same lenses that I had gotten a couple of months ago. I paid for my lenses at checkout, like one would expect to do. They do offer an option to pay later, but I figured that was if one wanted to set up an account, and I just wanted to pay and be done with it. BIG MISTAKE!

I get a phone call today, and the operator says that they are unable to ship my lenses as my prescription expired about 30 days ago. (Personally, I think that there should be a "window" but okay, this is the law.) However, the real problem is that Coastal Contacts HAS ALREADY CHARGED MY CREDIT CARD--despite being unable to ship me the merchandise I've paid for.

My choice is to wait for some indeterminate time for a refund, dispute the charge--or (their suggestion) go get a new exam and then they will ship them (like that wouldn't take weeks).

Every internet retailer I have ever ordered from does not charge your card until they know they can ship your merchandise. That makes me think this place is just operating on what is in essence a loan that customers are floating them. The website is unclear about when your card is charged, or this whole invoice after delivery thing. The operator treated me like a fool for paying at the time of purchase--excuse me for being a prompt-paying customer! She was very snotty about the whole deal.

Part of the reason I am desperate for lenses is that two of the last batch I got from them were defective. I should have learned my lesson that time.

I am calling the bank tomorrow to dispute the charges so that I can get my money back. I will never order from this outfit again (and I found a Canadian supplier of contacts that does not require prescriptions). Thank you Canadians, for being reasonable people :)