I have the impression selectspecs does bifocal inserts, and you can just type whatever you want.
I’ve used them for non-bifocal and am happy with the service.
Indeed Selectspecs can do +0.50. However they say the usual thing
“It is also essential to confirm your prescription, please attach a copy of this on your reply, thanks”
and no optician will write out a prescription for these spectacles.
Peter wrote:
“It is also essential to confirm your prescription, please attach a copy of this on your reply, thanks”
I orderd my backup glasses without any sort of showing / uploading a prescription. I just tested for bifocals (with random values), and was able to go up to the card details section. Have you actually tried to place an order?
I tried placing an order with the other firm mentioned earlier and they asked for the official bit of paper a day or so later. It looks like somebody downstream reviews the orders 
It is pretty easy to spot something uncommon.
Interesting (I got my glasses without them asking for anything else, but they didn’t have inserts).
On the other hand, I bet the checking the prescription has just to do with them checking that people didn’t just misunderstand / mistype and them complain online that the glasses are not good / the vendor is crap.
Looking at the presctiption I have in front of me, there isn’t anything “official” looking about it, so I bet there is nothing illegal / really immoral about faking one.
Peter wrote:
and no optician will write out a prescription for these spectacles.
Write your own. It’s not as if a prescription comes with an official seal and anti-copying hologram on it.
A google on something like “forging an opticians prescription” produces reams of reading for a slow day Most of it is from the USA where people seem to work hard to obtain spare contact lenses without paying for a fresh eye test; their insurance covers only one test a year. Maybe this issue exists here too.
It is a crime to alter a prescription on some real optician’s letterhead. And if the online seller decides to phone the optician to check it, you will get found out. Then, my wild guess is that what happens depends on how badly p1ssed off the optician gets. The police around here don’t investigate burglaries, reportedly, if nobody was at home, but you never know… they do find the time to check up on GAR forms versus arrivals, seemingly 100% these days.
IMHO it isn’t a crime to photoshop an imaginary optician’s letterhead e.g. “Alioth Eye Care” and write out your own prescription. Just make sure you are not claiming any qualifications or professional association memberships, implicitly or explicitly. IANAL, obviously
I had a funny session with the local one the other day. I turned up with my DIY measurements for some sunglasses with reading inserts. He of course had to do his own eye test. Then he laughed and joked that he wasted his 4 years of training… his numbers were identical to mine, except one of the axis angles was 5 degrees different (which is well below what most people can observe during the test; a 20 degree variation is normal if a bit sloppy).
Selectspecs will accept any kind of prescription as long as it looks reasonably plausible. The one I sent them was all in Czech (even without the usual Latin notation of OD, OS, SPH and CYL), and I seriously doubt they have a Czech translator on staff. Also, in many countries you don’t really need a doctor to get a prescription for eyeglasses – an optician will do a measurement using a refractometer, often free of charge (even if you don’t buy anything from them); the only cases when it won’t suffice is when your vision is in such a poor shape that flying is more or less out of the question anyway.
Sure; they just want to see it on the letterhead. I think it is their “cover your 6 o’clock” procedure.
You could ask them if they will make this
R
-0.25 SPH
-0.75 CYL 110 deg
+1.50 reading insert
L
+0.75 SPH
-0.25 CYL 85 deg
+0.50 reading insert
This prescription is less than 1% likely to be right for a normal live human, unless they had a cataract op in one eye and not the other.
As soon as I asked them if they can do the +0.50 insert (which they confirmed – that is itself really interesting; perhaps it is a Seiko lens) they wanted to see the official prescription.
BTW Zeiss told me the smallest insert is +0.75 – because they make glasses out of the usual catalogue of lenses.
Peter wrote:
(which they confirmed – that is itself really interesting; perhaps it is a Seiko lens)
I vaguely remember reading somewhere that Selectspecs and their competitors are not using ready-made lenses but rather make them individually for every order on programmable machines.
