I have been a customer of Hawthorne vision center for over 15 years.
They have always been overpriced, but their service has always been good, up to now.
I had a $700 pair of titanium (NiTiNol) spectacles self destruct while pulling on my undershirt the other day. Both bridge welds failed simultaneously. The frames were $400, the progressive coated lenses were another $300.
My dad's laboratory developed NiTiNol. I am well acquainted with its metallurgy, and two welds failing simultaneously is clearly metal fatigue from improper welding. I have seen that properly fabricated NiTiNol is approximately unbreakable.
HVC refused to replace my overpriced, defective frames, citing the fact that they are a year-and-a-half old and are only warranted for a year.
Excuse me.....I have a couple of pairs of sunglasses I bought from Costco with NiTiNol frames, and I have never had an $80 Costco frame fail in a year-and a half.
Assuming Costco is marking the frames up 100%, HVC is likely marking their crappy frames up 1000%, and not standing behind them when metallurgical defects are obvious.
Under prior management, I have received new frames when I had problems with defective frames. The people who bought this practice are greedy pricks, and I will never use them again.
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