During the second week of May, I walked into my local (Bloomfield, NJ)
eyeglasses place ("Eye DRx") and ordered replacement of scratched
tinted lenses. Off went the glasses to Texas headquarters of Eye Care
Centers of America, Inc., the parent company (er...not exactly!).

Now, after more than two months and numerous visits to the store -
AND STILL NO GLASSES - I've decided to find out a little more about
ECCA, my tormentor.

For one thing, they are one of America's largest retailers of
eyeglasses. There are 15 Eye DRx locations in my state, New Jersey, and
there are 360 other stores in 32 other states. Some of the local chains
operate under such names as "EyeMasters," "Visionworks," "Vision
World," "Doctor's VisionWorks," "Dr. Bizer's VisionWorld," "Dr. Bizer's
ValuVision," "Doctor's ValuVision," "Hour Eyes," "Stein Optical" and
"Binyon's."

What is ECCA? From what I can tell, it's a bunch of suits that do
BIDNIZ in San Antonio.

Actually, the controlling owner of ECCA is a shaky Hong Kong company,
Moulin,
(International Herald Tribune: "Fall of Hong Kong firm is a shock to
investors." Full article:
http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2005/07/06/yourmoney/moulin.php)
Frames come from Asia and ECCA lenses are jobbed out to various
independent labs.

Standard and Poor's and Moody's in the past two months had rather
chilly warnings about ECCA.

Till now I've been dropping into the store once a week to badger my
salesperson, Martha, and her manager, Audrey, about the delay. They
dutifully, in my presence, have called Texas HQ and pleaded for the
glasses. Promises...but still no glasses. Since lenses are farmed out,
would they even know?

Wish I'd gotten curious a little earlier. I'd have driven another
two miles and gotten them within a week and a lot cheaper. (Oh, yes. I
had to prepay at ECCA.)

You'll find some interesting press releases on the ECCA corporate
website:
http://www.ecca.com/investor_relations/press_releases.aspx

And Google has lots of lethal info pertaining to ECCA and its troubled
Chinese parent.

Gene