Thai's Ripping Off Thai's

[chiang mai]

My mother in law came to stay for three days and we discovered that the poor dear is almost as blind as a bat. So we took her to a good eyecare shop for an eye exam and and paid 200 baht for her prescription. We then went to Top Charoen eyecare in CM since there is a branch of this store in the town where she lives and collection of the finished glasses would be easier.

I asked my wife to take her into the store and I agreed to wait outside so as to avoid the hard sell on high priced lenses and this worked out well. When I entered the store ten minutes later the sales staff were talking in terms of vari focus lenses that were not exactly the latest technology but would surely do the job and were priced at 2,000. We were discussing the logistics of ordering the glasses in CM and having them delivered from Bangkok to the shop in her home town when my wife said that she would have to take the eye exam again. Why I asked, she already has a prescription. My wife continued that the optometrist had asked whether she had taken the eye exam standing up or sitting down and when she replied sitting down the staff had told her that was not a complete exam. It would therefore be necessary for her to take the exam again and the charge would be 200 baht.

As I turned to query the staff they all seemed to enter the, "I wish I was invisible mode". I was about to ask them whether it was okay that mother in law was wearing a blue dress when the exam was conducted since I had read somewhere that this had a bearing on the results but thought better of it. Needless to say we left without placing an order and will get the glasses elsewhere. The really sad part of all of this is that it took me several minutes to convince my MIL and the wife that this was in fact a rip off and sitting down or standing makes absolutely no difference.

[LaoPo]

My mother in law came to stay for three days and we discovered that the poor dear is almost as blind as a bat. So we took her to a good eyecare shop for an eye exam and and paid 200 baht for her prescription. We then went to Top Charoen eyecare in CM since there is a branch of this store in the town where she lives and collection of the finished glasses would be easier.

I asked my wife to take her into the store and I agreed to wait outside so as to avoid the hard sell on high priced lenses and this worked out well. When I entered the store ten minutes later the sales staff were talking in terms of vari focus lenses that were not exactly the latest technology but would surely do the job and were priced at 2,000. We were discussing the logistics of ordering the glasses in CM and having them delivered from Bangkok to the shop in her home town when my wife said that she would have to take the eye exam again. Why I asked, she already has a prescription. My wife continued that the optometrist had asked whether she had taken the eye exam standing up or sitting down and when she replied sitting down the staff had told her that was not a complete exam. It would therefore be necessary for her to take the exam again and the charge would be 200 baht.

As I turned to query the staff they all seemed to enter the, "I wish I was invisible mode". I was about to ask them whether it was okay that mother in law was wearing a blue dress when the exam was conducted since I had read somewhere that this had a bearing on the results but thought better of it. Needless to say we left without placing an order and will get the glasses elsewhere. The really sad part of all of this is that it took me several minutes to convince my MIL and the wife that this was in fact a rip off and sitting down or standing makes absolutely no difference.

Sad indeed

But I think it does matter...sitting or standing, especialy if your Mother in Law is almost blind.

Sitting is definately better than standing....how can you 'stand' still when they want to try and measure her eye-vision ?

Good luck to your MIL.

LaoPo