What started as a well-intentioned way to celebrate her birthday has turned into a distressing and exhausting nightmare for Candace Rohrick.
The Vancouver realtor has had to recall the solar glasses that she was giving away for free. She can no longer trust that the glasses meet safety standards and doesn’t want to take any risks.
Luckily, she had planned to hand-deliver many of the 1,200 pairs people had requested through her website. Canada Post also helped her to return the first batch of glasses that she mailed out before she realized that the glasses might be part of a counterfeit scam.
The glasses clearly say they are ISO approved and that they are made by American Paper Optics, conforming and meeting all requirements. American Paper Optics is one of the companies NASA has verified.
On Sunday, however, Amazon.com announced that it was pulling some of its solar glasses if the supplier could not provide proof that they were compliant with safety standards. Amazon offered refunds for any potentially counterfeit glasses that people had ordered.
This prompted people to start questioning all solar glasses’ validity. A reader contacted the Courier to say that she believed the glasses the Rohricks were giving away were likely knock-offs. The Rohricks’ glasses did not include the address of American Paper Optics or a bar code, which are visible on the glasses sold directly on the company’s website. Glasses purchased directly from the company did. The Courier contacted the Rohricks who spent all day Monday addressing the situation.
The Rohricks had ordered the glasses weeks ago — neither directly from American Paper Optics or Amazon.
“The supplier listed the product from ‘American Paper Optics’ and had the proper certification,” Preston says. “Before I ordered I had looked up all of the certifications required to ensure that we purchased the proper eye wear. I was initially going to get custom-printed glasses but instead I opted for the pre-made ones as I wanted to have all of the proper certifications and warnings displayed on the glasses.”
On Monday their attempts to contact their supplier went unanswered.
They decided to err on the side of caution and recalled the glasses. “If the glasses are imitation I definitely would not trust them,” Preston says in an email. “It is quite brazen that people would forge certifications for the glasses, especially considering that there could be health consequences.”
In the meantime, CTV Vancouver invited UBC astro-physicist Jaymie Matthews to check out the glasses Rohrick was distributing. Matthews said they passed his tests, which came as a huge relief to the Rohricks.
Still, they have phoned or email everyone who had already been sent the glasses to let them know about the recall. She had planned to spend four hours every night this week hand-delivering 200 pairs and had 600 pairs yet to mail (150 of which had already been packaged and stamped.)
“I can’t express how deeply sorry I am,” she says on her website. “This is terrible news so close to such an amazing phenomenon.”
In the meantime, the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre is giving away solar glasses by donation and is hosting a public celebration the morning of August 21.
