Spec’s In Armory Square

As another Armory Square proprietor put it, the owner has «a very lax view of retail.»
Having just moved to Syracuse, I needed a place to get a pair of glasses adjusted and order new contacts. A friend recommended Spec’s, as he had gone there once to get his eyes checked and had a «fine» experience. I couldn’t find a better alternative, so (despite the bad review I had read, below) I gave them a call. The phone rang and rang and rang, and no one answered, so I stopped in one day instead. The girl at the desk was of little to no help — she was not the optometrist (/​owner?), she said, but the optometrist would be there the next day between 11AM and 6PM. I took her card and returned the next day at noon. The door was locked — no sign with opening hours, no «will return in 30 minutes,» nothing. Just locked. I was irritated, as it’s generally a pain to park down there, and I had come to Armory Square with the express purpose of stopping in to get my glasses /​contacts taken care of. I was still unable to find a better alternative, so I waited a week and came back. Same thing. Door locked, no sign, no nothing. At this point, I was pissed. Another friend recommended New York Optometric (which was AMAZING, by the way), so that’s where I went instead.
Even if the doors were opened wide to me today, even if I knew that there were world-​class opticians inside, I would not set foot in this place. The level of customer service that those brief interactions revealed indicate that, frankly, my dear, they don’t give a damn.

Oh. My. God. What a NIGHTMARE experience! Seriously, can anyone point me to the Consumer Complaints Commission, I’d like to file a formal appeal. My partner and I were ‘lucky’ enough to stumble in here on a Saturday, apparently during the 15-​minute time slot they are actually open, and somehow ended up dropping $ 400 on a set of Ted Baker frames and lenses. We were told they’d be ready in a few days, and we planned on driving up the following Saturday to pick them up. Alas, nearly two weeks later and no glasses. Eventually, I drove up on a weekday to fetch them (not an insubstantial drive as it’s more than an hour away), and when I brought them back, the prescription was wrong and he could hardly see out of them! We gave it a few days to see if it was simply a matter of adjusting, then we took them to a local optician who confirmed one of the lenses did not match the prescription. After several attempts at reaching them (do they EVER pick up the phone?!) we were told to mail them back (at our own expense) and they’d have a look. They never phoned to tell us they had received the glasses, and when we finally reached them a week later they claimed they hadn’t received them, even though we sent them express, recorded delivery. A day later they had miraculously appeared, but surprise of surprises, they didn’t see anything wrong with the lenses except maybe a few scratches. Scratches? What? They offered to have the scratches fixed and send them back. We said don’t bother, and asked for a refund instead, which they refused. We asked them to send them back so we could take them to other opticians and get written testimonies that they were not made properly, but had still not received them a week later. When we next managed to reach them (again, after several unanswered phone calls and messages) they told us they were still back at the lab having the mysterious scratches mended. It is now nearly TWO MONTHS since we bought the glasses, my partner’s vision is impaired, and the matter is still not resolved. It was quite a major purchase for us, and we decided to splurge at a small boutique shop because we thought we’d get great, personal service, but the opposite was true.
update: After another visit to the optometrist, we discovered the initial prescription was, in fact, flawed for one of the lenses. It took us yet another month to have the lens changed, as they «lost» them again — ie failed to take delivery of an insured, registered parcel for 21 days, during which we filed an insurance claim with the post office, only to have the battered box returned with several failed delivery attempt dates scrawled across the front. Although the optometrist was partially to blame for the mix-​up, I still stand by my review, as the ridiculous delay and absolutely horrid service customer service are my main complaints about the business