Eyeglass Lens Direct

Have bought two pairs of expensive progressive lenses, one Zeiss, the other Shamir.
The glasses arrived back within ten days, the lenses were perfect, and the price was at least
50% lower than any retail optician. Plus, they have very friendly and knowledgeable customer service people who answer the phone quickly.

Reading Some of the other reviews, I’ll admit I was a little nervous trying them out. However I discovered the website is easy to use, and when I had questions about certain details of my order, I talked to a real person on the phone. He was polite, patient and answered all my questions in a way that I understood. (At my mall optical place the ppl are extremely rude and answer question with a lot of technical jargon.)
I sent my glasses in (sunglass frame, non Rx) on ³⁄₂₈. I called on ⁴⁄₁ and asked if they had received them, and what the ETA would be. He explained that Bc of some of the treatments that I had ordered I should have them in about 3 weeks. Stuck a note on my fridge to call back on ⁴⁄₂₁ and left it at that.
On ⁴⁄₂₀ I received an email stating they had been shipped. Received them yesterday and could not be happier. They are exactly what I wanted. Thank you! They best price for custom lenses, from a reputable place.
There were some places that were less expensive but there reviews were sketchy, and I couldn’t get a real person on the phone.

Eyeglass Lens Direct did not deliver the custom lenses that I ordered with the anti-​reflective coating that I paid extra for (Crizal Sapphire anti-​reflective coating). The owner Steve Villani admitted in an email that he deliberately used a different anti-​reflective coating. I didn’t like the one he used at all. It didn’t have the superior Crizal Sapphire anti-​reflective coating benefits. He did this without even asking me.
I sent them back to be redone. The second time around, he sent me back lenses that were still not the correct anti-​reflective coating. It appeared to be a cheaper coating with a green/​pink hue. I had other opticians look at the quality and compare them to samples of Crizal Sapphire. The other opticians showed me the differences and that it was not Crizal Sapphire at all. Also, the lenses were not even the correct type of lens material! I had ordered Trivex lenses, and what I got the second time around were Polycarbonate!
These are big differences that a lay person may not see right away, but I knew well enough to have them inspected by legitimate optical stores in my area. I’m glad that the opticians pointed out the differences and that my lenses were not made with the correct material or coating.
There is a «no refund policy» so I had to go through my credit card company to get my money back and send numerous documentation to the credit card company stating that the opticians I went to had inspected my glasses and agreed that they were not authentic. Going back and forth through the credit card company took me SIX MONTHS to get my money back.
I’ve never felt so cheated by a company before.
Do yourself a favor and DON’T take the risk of ordering cheap lenses here. You might not get what you paid for.

I have purchased very expansive Zeiss bifocals for my mom with clear cover from them a year and a half ago, hoping my investment will last her several years. Not really, in about a year of light and VERY careful use (she always keeps them in the box, only wears them while driving, no hard chemicals) — coat started to peal off in the middle, now all lens is foggy. So I emailed and asked if anything can be done, ‘couse I don’t want to «invest» like that every year.
Their response was:
«…the lenses are only under warranty for one year. Unfortunately there is nothing that can be done except to replace the lenses»
Seems to me like a very cheap quality for an expansive price, not the brand quality you would expect from Zeiss. So either what I got was not Zeiss, or a 100 year old brand went down the drain with their quality. Anyway, good bye my money. Sorry mom:(

I’ve ordered several pairs of computer/​office glasses from this place and I’ve been happy with them in the past. May take a few weeks to get your glasses back, but worth
the wait and usual got some feedback that things were coming shortly. Now I
get nothing.
Lately, as of June 2014, this place seems to have gone underground
without any explanation. I am now waiting 3 weeks on a pair of
computer lenses and no response to calls or emails at all for
past few days. Nothing…
I have no clue what is going on here, but I am getting suspicious
of them now. Has to be more than one person working at
this business, but maybe not.
Anybody else have any insights, please speak up. Price and selection are
great, but if I lose my money and my good frames, then I am really mad!
I will give it another week before filing a dispute with credit card (which will
get my money back) and then also file with the TX Attorney General and
that will get some attention. Don’t expect to ever see the frames if they are
out of business.
Seems like others are having issues too from recent posts here,
so beware, this business might have gone under. I did correspond
with owner just before placing order to confirm a detail. Had a very
good viable business previously, but now may just be driving it into
the ground, who knows…

Steve did a great job first time, 2 years ago — beautiful lens fit. Last time he broke an expensive frame, and missed the lower bifocal prescription by a mile. I could see craters on Mars, and God, but could not read with them. Another pair returned to me with the plastic display lenses they came with — not the lenses I paid for. He blew me off — did not return emails. WTF Steve? You have either overloaded yourself to the point you cannot provide the good service you know how to do, or hired neanderthals. Come on — save yourself, and us.

Bottom line — the price is right if you can see well enough to wait a month or more to get your glasses back and don’t care about customer service.
Bought a pair of Versace eyeglass frames online for less than half the price my optometrist’s office was charging. Went online to
, purchased the frames and received them in about a week. Turned around and put the frames in a box to this retailer,
with a 2 day Shipping from USPS. I received confirmation that they got my frames on November 26^th. I asked the person emailing me, ‘Steve’, if expedited handling was available, and he told me he’d ask for my order to be expedited.
I got the glasses, and they are fine. But the package was not shipped from Sugarland to San Diego until December 17^th, and I received it on Dec. 24. A fail for the post office, and as for the service I received from the company — meh. I’ll check out other lens providers next time.

Had a good experience so much so that I can see ordering from ELD in the future. The first pair that arrived I had a problem adapting to the bifocals. Called ELD and Steve mentioned their one time policy to correct the prescription. Received the second pair and couldn’t be happier. If you need lenses quick, this may not be your best option. I looked around online and am happy I found ELD.

I can not understand how 2 separate eyeglass scripts with the information taped around each pair of glasses turns into one. The best part they where male and female glass frames. The color shading was correct for the male which was gray and female which was pink but that was as far as it went. Also I want to say if you have any problems with being diabetic and you might need the lens remade you will pay half price on your first charge. The women’s glasses came in correct the second time around and are nice. The mans glasses are correct other than I requested that the tint be a little less intense. Guess what? They are just as dark as the first set. I will just live with it. I do not have another 3 weeks to kill plus shipping for a third time. The bottom line is did I save? For me not really. The glasses are good if they get made right.

I selected the most expensive highest RI lenses available from Mr. Steve Villani. I received the thickest lenses I’ve ever seen and called Mr Villani. He was not in the least apologetic and abruptly ended or conversation with, «you got what you ordered, good bye». The lenses are useless to me as even the peripheral vision is extremely narrow, so I don’t believe the lenses were cut from the expensive material I ordered. Watch out for this miscreant.

I’ve ordered several pairs of computer/​office glasses from this place and I’ve been happy with them. A computer lens is weird, if you have a distance and a reading prescription they don’t do the full distance, it’s all calibrated to give you great focus at about 24 inches, with a large area for reading — like you were looking down at something on your desk.
It does take 2 – 3 weeks to get the glasses back. I had some made at a local optician and their price was about twice what this place charged. Since I was having a second pair made (so I don’t have to truck them back and forth from work) I felt the wait was acceptable for the savings.

One star for previous experience with them. LAST time (~1.5 years ago) they even gave my sister the bags for her lenses that they used, they also came super quick.
This time I would give them zero stars. They took more than a month to come, and when they did the lens were HUGE they stick out of the frames about ¼th an inch on both sides, they also didn’t polish the lens edges which she paid for.
We inquired as to what had happened and the reply was because the glasses are wrap around frames, which we do not believe they are They also claimed they should have charged us extra for it.
So she’s very unhappy, those huge things made her frames exceedingly heavy and they don’t fit on her face because the sides stick out so much. My sister ordered polycarbonate lenses but they didn’t send the original bags that held the lens they sent last time to prove that they are what they claim to be, so here we are with an unwearable pair of glasses which we aren’t even sure if they’re 100% correct so thanks a lot.
But it’s okay, my sister decided to find a closer place to home for her next glasses. BE WARNED.

Do yourself a favor and don’t do business with this guy Steve Villani, the owner. He’s a shyster. It took me over 4 months and cost me over $ 400. to get a set of replacement lenses for my rimless Silhouette frames. He lets you wait a month so you will accept anything he gives you.
You should have seen the heaviness and thickness of the lenses he sent me, which were supposedly 1.67 high-​index plastic. Complete junk. Also, the prescription for one lens was incorrect. He deliberately did this so he could make more money, this was no accident.
Any lab in the country will give you one free remake if you are not satisfied with the lenses, or they don’t get it right. Not this guy. He ripped me off and there was not much I could do about it and no one to complain to.
I hope this review costs him some money because this is the only language he knows. If five people choose not to order then I will feel vindicated.
Before you order, go to your local WalMart, BJs, Costco, or similar vision center — not an optometrist or optician — and compare the price for his lenses and theirs.
I have used Zeiss, Nikon, Seiko, and Varilux. There is actually very little difference in lenses from manufacturer to manufacturer if you compare apples to apples. If you need progressive, high-​index plastic, 1.67 or 1.74, or a high nearsighted (minus) prescription every lab has them — including most manufacturer’s lines. What really matters is how they GRIND the lenses and/​or FIT them into the frames — NOT THE LENSES.
Ninety-​nine percent of opticians and optometrists do not grind their own lenses — they send them out to a lab. They are simply middlemen charging exorbitant prices for what cost them very little. The single vision reading glasses for $ 20 at your local pharmacy are absolutely no different than the reading glasses you get from your optician. I challenge you to show me a difference. Think about what glasses should cost if pharmacies are able to sell lenses and frames for twenty bucks.
Don’t take my word for it. Like I said, go to a local chain store and ask what lenses they have and the price for replacements. You will find you are not saving anything and that you are opening up yourself to problems you don’t need. The labs that handle glasses for WalMart, etc., want to keep the customer happy. They don’t want to lose a lucrative contract.

When my daughter’s glasses did arrive, they were perfect. Just don’t go this route if you need them sooner than 3 – 4 weeks.

I am very happy with this online company. They sell lenses, not glasses. You send them your frame and they install the lenses. This is the only company I know of that allows you to select among brands and types of lenses. You can select from almost every upscale lens on the market with numerous variations. The site walks you through the easy ordering process, but when you have to select among various brands and specifications, it can be daunting at first. I called them and the owner patiently and clearly explained all the differences and helped me make a selection, WITHOUT trying to sell me the most expensive lenses. The delivery time was three weeks, which is about average in my experience. I ended up with Varilux Physio Enhanced progressive lenses with Crizal Saphire. I don’t know of any online companies that offer Crizal Saphire. In fact, many retail opticians do not offer it. The prices are a fraction of those you find at the big retailers. I priced lenses at Lenscrafters, same prescription, same brand, lower quality level, lower Crizal level, literally twice the price. I am just anal about my glasses. Anything less than perfect makes me crazy. I have used Pearl, Lenscrafters, See, AmericasBest, Coastal and Zenni. None of them is even close in terms of lens quality and pricing. If your glasses are really important to you, this is a great option.

Used ELD to relens my glasses with Crizal Avance about a year ago. Definitely cheaper than everywhere I looked. Turnaround time was longer than expected. Five weeks after I sent the frame in, I emailed/​called to see when I can expect the glasses back. No response for five more days, until I sent a more «persuasive» email, and Steve replied that they’ve been very busy and the frame would ship the next day. To his credit, the frame did ship as promised, and the received product was very good. As another reviewer noted, packaging for the lens used was included to give assurance that the material was legit. Overall a good experience.

Dear Steve–
Thanks for your message on my voicemail from September 27, 2011.
It’s nice to hear that you help people and even help underprivileged people. I do, too. However, that doesn’t explain why I had to send a letter from my doctor to PayPal to resolve the issue of my incorrectly-​made glasses. I’m truly sorry that we couldn’t resolve the situation by ourselves, especially given the ample time we spent communicating.
You state that you tried to send my frame back to me several months ago and that it was returned to you. I asked Receiving here to check the records of parcels they’d returned to sender, and if anything was returned to you, it wasn’t by us. Further, they have no record of a second parcel ever arriving from you at all. To be brutally honest: I don’t believe you attempted to send the frame back. If I’m wrong, I am sorry.
To be clear, I’m not asking for anything from you at this point; I’m simply responding to your message. (For your information, I moved last week, so please don’t try to send the frame back now. If you still have it, perhaps you could donate it to someone who could not afford one.)
I believe I have stated my point fairly thoroughly so I’m not sure that putting more energy into this will change the situation. I would like to thank you for taking the time to call me.

Used them to get Crizal lenses. They were cheaper than any brick and mortar store, even accounting for insurance, and did an excellent job. I was a little leery about sending my glasses off to some site I’d never heard of before but they came highly recommended from a friend who used them, and I’m glad I took his advice.

Did you know that most vision insurance is practically useless? The whole business is heavily corrupt because the insurance companies are in bed with the retailers. If you are «lucky» enough to have vision insurance typically it will only let you use a certain set of retailers. Those retailers will typically charge anywhere from 50−60% more to make up for the insurance and you’ll end up just getting the normal price.
Which brings me to why I buy eyeglasses online from now on. First I am in a unique position to rate eyeglasses. Why? Because my prescription is through the roof. When you have a high prescription you tend to heavily scrutinize any retailer that is providing for *your* vision.
Fortunately this place rocks. You mail them your frames, they cut the lens, and mail it back to you. For me I opted for the 1.74 single vision high index lens. This is absolutely the highest index you can get. Morst retailers won’t even have this. Did I mention they also include a certificate of authenticity with your glasses? Awesome place.