As we noted last week, Luxottica is the company behind pretty much all eyewear on the market these days, and you know what that means when it comes to customer service: if you don’t have to compete to keep your customers happy, why bother? That’s why Patricia is facing a ridiculously high repair fee, but can’t get through on the provided phone number to tell Luxottica to cancel the repair. In fact, every time she calls she’s put on hold and then disconnected.

I never thought this day would come, but I have found a company with worse (worse because it’s totally non-existent) customer service than Verizon. The lens on my new Ray Bans cracked after wearing them once or twice, so I sent them in to Luxottica for repair. The non-refundable processing fee is $12.50, and I had to pay for insured shipping, which cost an additional $6. I received a letter in the mail that my repair would cost $80, almost half of what I originally paid. I have tried to call the number 800-343-5594 as directed by the aforementioned letter. I have tried multiple times, never reached an actual person, and was disconnected each time after approximately ten minutes without fail. I know it is not my phone as I have tried both landline and my cell phone. Has anyone else ever written in with this problem?

If I can’t reach anyone and I’m too poor (unemployed) to pay the $80, would it be OK for me to dispute the transaction on the credit card? The purchase was made a couple months ago.

I think you can dispute any repair fee that Luxottica slaps onto your card. As for getting a full refund, if you can get the glasses back in their broken state but you’re beyond the store’s return window, you should see if your credit card has an extended warranty for purchases and exercise that.

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