'Consumers should be offered reglaze option'

Consumers are being warned they are wasting millions of pounds a year on unnecessary new frames by an online glazing company.

In an article in the Observer newspaper this week (October 4) the firm claimed high street practices forced consumers into buying new frames unnecessarily since there was much more money to be made selling frames than lenses.

Author of the article, journalist Rebecca Smithers, said she took a pair of old sunglasses to an optician with her current prescription and was told they were 'too old' to have the lenses replaced and she should choose new frames instead. Eventually the practice relented after Smithers insisted she wanted to keep the frames and it reglazed them for £60.