mattlas

I live in North America, and I went to an optometrist referred by my girlfriend at the time. After shortly meeting the optometrist, he refused to give me my contact lenses prescription unless I committed to buy contact lenses from him . I told him I was willing to pay for the eye exam, but the moment I say "I just want the prescription and shop around" he REFUSED to do my exam. He say that he can get sued and lose his license if he give me the wrong prescription (wtf...) and I was actually ushered out of the store because I just couldn't understand wtf was going on. This was a high end store in ritzy suburb in my city.

This has to be a scam. I believe optometrists understand they lose a lot of business to online contact lenses companies, and the only thing keeping people in the door is that damn prescription.

Was this an isolated event or is this a key 'trick' to keep clients from leaving, or was he actually telling the truth?

EDIT: He refused to do my eye exam. I did not pay for the eye exam where he withheld my prescription. He simply refused to do the exam and I left with nothing, but not spending a dime.

I knew it. He clearly made a lot of money scamming people who didn't know any better. What a tool, sometimes it's that clear to see through someone's BS.

Thanks!

Why do you refuse to give a prescription on the first visit? This is exactly what happened.

As a early 30ties portfolio manager myself, I see the increasing flows of money into ETFs and emerging strategies like AI / robo-investing. I sometimes think whether or not ETFs, robo-investing and AI are all threats on fundamental, bottom up research. What are your thoughts about products or emerging technologies replacing the value portfolio manager? Personally speaking, I actually welcome ETFs because you’re making the assumption your basket of stocks are appropriately priced which gives me more opportunity to generate alpha as passive investors ignore buying undervalued stocks or selling overvalued ones.

What advice would you give investment boutiques who have great teams and strategies, but simply miss-out on institutional business due to overall AUM being too low?

I have so many more questions but I'll keep it to these two for now, thank you!

Let's be clear. He did not withhold my prescription. He refused to do the eye exam. I left empty handed but didn't spend a dollar.