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Buying used hearing aids

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I buy on eBay. I bought some 2016 Phonak Brio P-UPs off eBay which are in warranty until 01/2020.
The Costco in London, UK has agreed to service them at the end of the year even tho I bought them off eBay.

contact seller is not working always show seller has heavy number of questions. try after some time cycle goes on on…

Edited

In theory maybe, in practice no way. A brand new gray market hearing aid would have factory default settings. It hasn’t been programmed yet.

Its hard enough shopping for a 2nd hand hearing aids. On top of that you would have to shop around for one that had an to match. Many sellers aren’t likely to have the audiogram for it anyway.

No way should you use an hearing aid that isn’t programmed correctly. Talk with an audiologist. Many of them offer a free hearing test. Bring the 2nd hand or gray market hearing aids with you. Tell the audiologist your situation and negotiate a price to get the hearing aids programmed correctly. …or get the equipment and software to program them yourself.

Even without an if you have a typical ski slope loss and assume the used is set to that as well it wouldn’t be the worst gamble in the world. Or you could confine yourself to used HAs with audiograms available and that fairly closely match your audiogram. JMO.
I do think this–I could take the HAs of the vast, vast majority of the people posting on this forum and hear better than with nothing.

Sure, So If you lost your eyeglasses, it wouldn’t be the “worst gamble in the world” if you borrowed someone else’s eyeglasses so you could drive yourself home.
If you have trouble hearing, you owe it to yourself to get it done right. I believe those living in poverty can apply for Medicare (Affordable Care Act) to pay for the programming and entry level hearing aids. That would be lot better than 2nd hand hearing aids that were programmed for someone else’s hearing loss.

In reply to @elminero

@elminero said:

Sure, So If you lost your eyeglasses, it wouldn’t be the “worst gamble in the world” if you borrowed someone else’s eyeglasses so you could drive yourself home.
What a tortured analogy that is!
If you have trouble hearing, you owe it to yourself to get it done right. I believe those living in poverty can apply for Medicare (Affordable Care Act) to pay for the programming and entry level hearing aids. That would be lot better than 2nd hand hearing aids that were programmed for someone else’s hearing loss.

One doesn’t have to be living in poverty to not be able to afford upwards of $3K for a pair of IMO. They could well be among the so-called working poor, for example and forced to prioritize such mundane matters as paying their rent, feeding their family, etc.

Medicare does not. Some supplemental and senior advantage plans do. Medicare has nothing to do with poverty. It’s age (65) and certain disabilities (needing dialysis for sure) related. Medicaid (MediCal in California) is low or no income related. It will pay for hearing aids in certain situations, but rules vary by state. This stuff is complicated.

Edited

In reply to #32

It could depend on your state. California has their own state insurance known as Medi-Cal. Medi-Cal will pay for entry level hearing aids for those with moderate to sever hearing loss. You would have to visit a health clinic. The health clinic would give you a referral to a state audiologist. The state audiologist writes a referral for a local audiologist that gets you entry level hearing aids and bills the insurance company that Medi-Cal pays for. This makes a lot of sense because how can you go to a job interview if you can’t hear? How can you keep a job if you can’t hear correctly?

I agree with The FatCatGuy. Working poor need access to hearing aids. Like I said I got my hearing aids on eBay and I do my own programming. If you own a computer, why not get a Hi-Pro box and some cables. Poor working class folks and rich people that want to stay rich should buy on eBay. No working people should ever have to live in poverty, but I guess we all have to to work a little harder to pay for the big bank bail outs…and maybe a wall… Not every pot has a chicken in it.

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