Eyeing Fraud: Stanton Optical Corporate Gets Sued
Attorneys General in Texas and Florida are being asked to investigate Stanton Optical, one of the nation’s biggest cheap eyeglass stores. Dolcefino Media has already opened our own examination to find out why nine Houston-area stores suddenly shut down. What is Stanton Optical doing? Filing a lawsuit against one of its alleged whistleblowers, as owners of franchise stores alleged they have been EYEING FRAUD.
Eyeing Fraud: Stanton Optical Corporate Gets Sued
“Get two pairs of free eye exam and anti-glare glasses for only 79 dollars.”
Sounds like a great deal.
“You didn’t know Stanton Optical makes eye care easy.”
300 Stanton Optical stores opened all across the country.
“It’s easy on 3. 1…2…3. Easy!”
Likely where you shop.
“With the best service, quality, and prices, Stanton Optical is the best value in eye care.”
“But is it? It’s time for Dolcefino Media to focus in on this large eyeglass store,” Wayne Dolcefino told the camera.
“What’s the problem? What is going on?” Ryan Galvez said.
It’s time for our exam.
Are we eyeing fraud?
“I just know the last time I picked them out myself. And I’ll be honest, by the second I got home I actually hated them,” Chris said.
Chris is picking out a new pair of glasses, texting his kids just to make sure they look good.
“Seems one eye is nearsighted, one eye is farsighted,” Chris said.
He’s got plenty of company.
168 million of us use some kind of prescription eyewear.
It’s huge business.
Chris is a foreman at Metro, inspecting buses, he needs to be able to see the road just in case.
“I have a CDL and I must pass it to keep my CDL,” Chris said.
Chris didn’t know it, but he was one of the very last customers in that Stanton store near Fry Road out in Katy.
It was one of nine Stanton stores that suddenly closed all over the Houston area.
We watched the demolition at a Stanton store in Spring the other day.
“It’s a little UV box, and when people order their glasses with Transitions, it was nice to put it here. This one did very well from day one and it’s held strong the entire time,” Ryan Galvez said.
So why are they all closing?
“You call this fraud?” Dolcefino asked.
“I call it strong arm fraud… it’s bad faith, it’s bad practices. That’s what it is,” Galvez said.
That isn’t coming from a competitor of Stanton Optical.
It’s coming from the owners of Oculus, a company that owned all of these nine Stanton franchise stores across the Houston area.
“We started noticing some issues with lab costs or delays,” Galvez said.
Now accusing the corporate owners of Stanton of cheating customers.
“The customer bases is just they’re yelling. They’re coming in,” Galvez said.
Uncovering possible insurance fraud, not everyone pays cash.
“About 30 to 40 percent use insurance,” Galvez said.
Lawsuits accusing the corporate owners of a scheme to even cheat their own franchise owners.
Oculus isn’t the only franchise operator that’s now suing Stanton in the 15th Judicial District Court in West Palm Beach, the company’s headquarters.
For what Oculus lawyers call a “prime illustration of corporate greed.”
“Oculus is out a ton of money, aren’t they?” Dolcefino asked.
“Millions,” Tal Debauche said.
“Between their nine locations, it’s upwards of six million dollars,” Debauche said.
“I like the way these look. I just don’t know about the way they look on me,” Chris said.
Like all the franchises, the Oculus stores had originally opened under My EyeLab brand, Stanton’s sister company.
It cost about 5 to six hundred thousand to open each and every store.
But then Stanton made a decision that would cost franchise owners like Ryan Galvez even more money.
They had current lease agreements with Stanton.
“And that happened about two years ago,” Galvez said.
Two years ago, Stanton advised the Eye Lab stores they would have to change their names to Stanton if they wanted to keep getting corporate support.
If not, they could even face competition from a corporate-owned store.
“It was a choice, but really not a choice?” Dolcefino asked.
“No, there was no choice even at that point,” Galvez said.
“They said, ‘If you don’t convert, you don’t spend 100 grand to pay for our new brand, we’re gonna withdraw all support for you.’ That’s coercion,” Debauche said.
At first there was a boost in business, the Stanton stores owned by Oculus could now make eyeglass lenses in-house the very same day.
But then they learned Stanton may have been playing them the entire time.
Scheming to cancel the franchise leases after folks like Ryan had dished out all that money.
“Stanton Optical franchise owners are moving forward with a lawsuit against the corporate headquarters in Florida after alleging they were victims of a bait and switch scheme.”
How was this alleged bait and switch scheme uncovered? Because of something Stanton lawyers said in this court filing, admitting they had decided to stop offering franchises a full year before Oculus and other owners had spent all that money to rebrand, to retrain their employees.
When the Oculus stores closed in September, 45 employees lost their jobs.
“They’re not your typical eye care company. I’m not your typical penguin.”
And investors, like Ryan Galvez, lost millions.
“That’s money down the drain?” Dolcefino asked.
“Yes. Someone who’s, you know, committed fraud, and I don’t use that term lightly,” Galvez said.
We followed Chris as he got his eyes tested.
He goes into a room to get his prescription right.
But that woman on the screen conducting the televisit.
She is not a doctor.
A Stanton whistleblower fills us in on how the company may be then committing insurance fraud.
“So that’s a refractionist most likely in Nicaragua.”
“Doesn’t there need to be an eye doctor here?” Dolcefino asked.
“To meet the qualifications for a comprehensive eye exam, there has to be synchronous interaction with the doctor at some point during this procedure, and there’s not.”
The franchise stores had no direct communication with insurance companies, that was done by the Stanton corporate office.
“They are the ones that bill directly to the insurance company, and then we receive a check,” Galvez said.
But a few months ago, they started taking a second look at the insurance billings, seeing evidence that Stanton was charging the insurance companies for comprehensive eye exams that never happened.
“I believe, if that’s correct, that is a fraudulent activity,” Galvez said.
In another lawsuit against Stanton filed by franchise owners from Round Rock, Texas, another potential criminal discovery.
“They testify that there are between three and four thousand prescriptions a week written by a single doctor in the state of Texas,” Debauche said.
That’s under one a minute.
A Dallas-area Stanton doctor, Anthony Nguyen, has been fined $4,700 by the Texas Optometry Board.
“That doctor cannot possibly review the patient file, review all the exam results, and then write an accurate prescription within the allotted time,” Debauche said.
That means Stanton Optical may not just be cheating insurance companies, but their patients too.
“I don’t remember my last test being like this,” Chris said.
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