Carolyn Owlett had mentally prepared herself for 14 weeks of wearing discrete dental aligners to straighten her teeth. She hadn’t, though, prepared herself for the bill. After walking out of her initial Invisalign session with her dentist in 2019, she was asked to pay the standard fee: £3,500. But as her 14 weeks came to a close, she was told she needed to pay an extra £1,000 to achieve the “look” she had initially been promised. And when Owlett’s aligners snapped during the pandemic and she returned to the dentist when lockdown ended, she was told she couldn’t have the aligners replaced or repaired. Instead she would have to begin the treatment all over again – before being quoted another £3,500.
“It seems like they sign you up for a certain price, knowing that they will have to hard-sell you later down the line and extend your treatment to finish the job,” she tells me. “The lack of honesty left a bitter taste in my mouth… and a hole in my wallet.” This price increase caused Owlett to abandon the idea of having straight teeth altogether. “I couldn’t really afford or justify it at that point,” she says. “I’ve just had to settle with the results, which aren’t bad but [my teeth still] aren’t straight – you wouldn’t think I had braces.”
