I'm done with Costco

I’m sorry you had a bad experience at Costco. Send them an email of complaint about the HS you had. You can also go to a different store as well, you might get better service.

Sadly it’s not just Costco that has poor service from HS/AuD. There’s a lot of poor audiologists out in private practice as well. I’ve experienced a shocker when I had bil HA’s.

@greg.smith said:

And yet, they are turning away sales?

Costco isn’t turning away sales. Whatever happened in SC is an outlier. The hearing aid center manager’s bonus is partly based on sales of new hearing aids. Those customers are given first priority.

Costco is the second largest supplier of hearing aids in the US. Veterans Affairs is number one. So a dealer doesn’t get as big as Costco by being difficult to work with or having poor customer service.

@Elderly said:

Costco’s net cost for the HAs themselves is around 50% of their selling price.

Based on what exactly?

I’d be surprised if the gross wholesale price per pair to Costco was much over $400.

@Um_bongo said:

Based on what exactly?

Time to be surprised!

Costco pays the same as the VA. Costco’s volume is huge. They sell between 300K and 350K pairs of HA’s a year.

Audi’s can’t buy hearing aids anywhere near Costco’s cost.

@fitzie63 Yes, lots and lots of Costco’s in the Puget Sound area. This may tamp down the kind of rude behavior described by @user783?! Each Costco Hearing Aid Center knows that they are not just competing with high end providers but with all the other Costco’s not that far away.

Costco has over 500 hearing aid centers in the US, each with two or more audiologists/HIS. Don’t assume all of them are bad based on one encounter!

No I’m sure I read it was 150 to 200 each Aid, but truth be told it was a few years back, here on hearingtracker, I can’t find it.
The VA says they supply (prescribed) nearly one million HAs per year, they won’t be paying that much for them, do the math it seems too much.

I’m grateful and happy to report that the HA Ctr. at the Richmond, CA, Costco still has 3 HA techs and one front desk person, and at least one other techie who is there sometimes. They are super busy, but they seem to do a good job of moving customers thru the system. While it isn’t perfect, I’ll keep going there for the price and the general excellence of the care. The mgr is quite good and has been there at least 10 yrs. and with Costco for much longer than that. Costco is a great place to build a career w/ excellent retirement, I understand.

To be fair, going to a private audiologist is a crap-shoot too.

Well Sam’s clubs are now selling high end hearing aids. So that may be an option for you.

You have 180 days to return them for a full refund them if Sam’s works better for you.

Good thread.

The OP has visited this post once. The rest of us march on.

I had a bad experience at the San Marcos CA. Costco, really rude manager who didn’t program the aids properly for me, I went to the Carlsbad location & the 2 women there were wonderful. I got the Rexton reach with power domes and they are great. If you can get another fitter maybe you will have a better experience, however I highly suggest you contact head office and complain, that is just unacceptable behavior, especially since you were 10 min early, she should have accomedated you!

In short, the story is that you chose to pay double because you believe losing your business would hurt Costco. The saying, “Cut off your nose to spite your face” comes to mind