Benchmark Vision Center

I frequented this place for about 10 years thinking that Dave, the owner and Angel the clerk were nice. I never allowed myself to get upset over anything but Angel made a mistake and never admitted it to her boss. Angel and I had decided that I had the option to tint my eyeglasses after they were done instead of doing them once they were ordered. I bought two pairs of eyeglasses and one was tinted but it took a long time as the lenses had to be replaced with a second pair. Angel reminded over the phone me that I used to get my eyeglasses tinted in other places before they did them for me and acted as if she didn’t know that I only want to wear frameless eyeglasses if I didn’t have them tinted. I wear clear eyeglasses to see and bright ones when I go out and don’t wear my contact lens. Frameless eyeglasses look like I am not wearing glasses. Angel knows me for a very long time and didn’t mention that the glasses that I was buying had frames but I couldn’t tell because they were black sunglasses. In the past she also didn’t want to show me how to put in my right contact lens believing that I was lucky enough to be able to wear the left one. I prefer wearing both but she said that I was used to wearing only the left lens. She should have encouraged me to use both and it would have been better business for the store as I only bought the lenses for the left eye. Angle and Dave kept telling me that there weren’t any other places that sold Caviar items and if there were I wouldn’t get as good of a deal. How would they know if they didn’t even know about other stores? I found out that there are many other places who sell Caviar eyeglasses and Angel still said that I wouldn’t get as good of a deal as with them which made no sense. They are so expensive so I didn’t assume that any other place would be more money and if so I wouldn’t buy there. I found another place in St. Pete where the optician is so nice and they have beautiful mirrors to color glasses. Benchmark doesn’t specialize in coloring eyeglasses but they always did mine but have a very small selection of colors. The optician told me that Angel mis-​infomed me, not necessarily on purpose, that I could have the pair of eyeglasses that I decided to have tinted since they had a reflective coating on them. In order to coat any glasses they can’t have any reflective coating which I didn’t know. When I told Angel she said that she always put on the coating but why would she do so if she knew that I might want to have them tinted. When I told David, Angel never fessed up and he already had a bad attitude as soon as he questioned me. When I told him that it bothered me when he would usually say how inexpensive are his products and that I didn’t have a lot of money, he acted as if I was lying or that it didn’t matter. He ended up yelling at me and finally saying to me «Get the f*** out.» and then to my male acquaintance «George you can leave too.» Dave apparently has an anger problem and I was the one who should have gotten that way but I wanted to give Angel a chance to come clean and she didn’t. I also didn’t want to accuse Angel of making a mistake which she did. Also I told them that a tiny stone was missing and they never guarantee their Caviar eyeglasses as do other vendors so they said that they couldn’t do anything. I walked out not wanting to allow myself to have to deal with being a victim and it wouldn’t have done any good to yell back. Not only was this unprofessional, but disrespectful to me as a long time loyal older female customer. When I told him that he shouldn’t speak to me as customer that way and that the customer is always right he disagreed and kept yelling, also admitting that he has yelled at other patrons. I already bought another pair of eyeglasses at a place in the mall and will have the lenses done in St. Pete. You can never be sure about everyone you think that you know.

Finding frames that flatter, fit and feel good is not as easy a task as some might think. After getting my eyes examined, I started making the rounds of various places to find new frames but was not having much luck.
For some reason, no matter how many glasses a store stocked there seemed to be far too few that caught my eye. So the search continued even extending to online sources until I realized I had no idea how to take the measurements of my face that those sites required.
Price is a consideration and the location of the place I buy factors into my decision as well. If anything needs to be fixed, adjusted or replaced, I want the business to be close by and convenient.
I stopped by Benchmark Vision Center for the first time and found multiple pairs of frames that seemed «eye-​deal» for me. After a process of elimination and some great help from the person staffing the center, I made my selection, placed my order and left with the piece of mind that new specs would be mine within a few days.
Great service and great selection made me a fan. Great prices made me a customer.