Read more here: http://reclaimthemedia.org/media_literacy/bias/ad_boycott_costs_glenn_beck_ov1438

Here’s a link to the story from the Northwest Herald of McHenry County, Illinois.

And here are some of the pertinent details to this sting operation:

A 34 year-old Crystal Lake, IL man tried to buy a dozen pairs of eyeglasses that he thought were stolen — from an undercover cop for $520. Ouch.

The “retail value” of the frames was $3,286. That’s $273 pair!

There were some silly name brands in there such as Dolce & Gabbana, Prada and Versace.

He’s been selling them to friends and family and on auction sites. Yeah, he’s a criminal.

This isn’t a good guy to be sure, but the true cost of those frames is much less than $200. The felony theft threshold is $300 in Illinois. This guy is a thief and is going to be a felon due to the insane pricing of designer eyeglass frames.

—

The first dozen pairs of glasses I bought starting in October 2006, set me back a total of less than $300 — INCLUDING LENSES!

So 30% of say, $300 is $210 — still not a bargain, and I bet they’re pushing the coatings, extended warranties and such twice as hard.

Wear your helmet if you’re thinking of “taking advantage” of this deal.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed a lawsuit in his behalf today.

Next time you’re in LensCrafters be sure to wear your Kevlar underpants, you really don’t know what can happen.

Lest we forget, LensCrafters is the U.S. flagship of the international Luxottica Group.

Read more here: http://www.infozine.com/news/stories/op/storiesView/sid/36628/

“The 9th Circuit reinstated California laws barring eyewear companies from advertising and selling prescription glasses in the same place that customers get their eyes examined.”

I had no idea that this had ever stopped being the case in California, but good on the 9th Circuit Court for fixing the problem.

“LensCrafters argued that the law discriminates against opticians by stripping them of the ability to provide “one-stop shopping” for their customers, although the state allows optometrists and ophthalmologists to set up practices where customers can get their eyes checked and also buy prescription eyewear.”

LensCrafters is seeing lagging profits and this will not help. They again, no longer have the upper hand in walking the unsuspecting customer into the showroom and pitching the over-priced frames and lenses.

I’d need to read the case-law more closely to predict how Luxottica will circumvent this next. If I had to guess it might be something like this:

R A

Y B A N

O A K L E Y B V

L G A R I V E R S A

C E R E V O F E R R A G A M O

M I U M I U B U Y R I G H T N O W

Read more here.

One more reason to get the Spanish and Portuguese versions of the GlassyEyes site going.

And the beat goes on.

In a huge, overblown launch party aboard a huge, overblown ferris wheel in Singapore, these brain-wizards released “Ray-Ban Colors”.

If you haven’t seen them yet, “Ray-Ban Colors” are essentially knock-offs of the 1980’s gas station Ray-Ban knock-offs.

You too can look twice as ridiculous now as Cyndi Lauper or Molly Ringwald did when these things were in style. I checked Luxottica’s Sunglass Hut website for pricing, and you’re going to pay $139 for the privilege.

I think they could sell literally dozens of these.

Click here for more images of the party and the Luxottica officials who will be looking for new gigs while the Luxottica warehouse crew tries to find storage space for a potential re-launch in 2019 as “Ray-Ban Brights!”


Nice job guys — and great timing!

LensCrafters is a mess, and the byzantine methods they’re using to dig themselves out make their frame and lens pricing strategies seem downright forthright and fair.

Here’s a link to one employee’s experience in recent weeks. Good luck to all of you still employed, you’re in for a wild ride (to help pay for the next incarnation of Leonardo’s next yacht).

Stock the stores with even less-qualified employees? Sounds like a great plan to me!

Cost cutting (read about the salary cuts over at our friends at EyeOverheard) was said to be an important factor in these fantastic quarterly results.

€80 Million in revenue for the quarter tells me there is still a whole lot of stupid out there.

Read more here (via Reuters).

The short answer is, I don’t. What I don’t like is the way they do business.

I’m all for efficiency — and sometimes consolidation of businesses can lead to that. Efficiencies, and the associated cost savings, at this level can (and absolutely should) “trickle down” to the consumer. This has quite obviously not been the case with this giant.

The biggest problem I see with Luxottica is that they’re greedy — really, really greedy. They feel a need to run everything and thereby own everything. They pick off the competition one brand or chain at a time with almost no resistance from the flaccid governments around the world — particularly in the United States. Who pays for all of these conquests? You do.

Don’t buy into it — fight back!