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Anyone have their hearing aid dealer go out of business?

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Your Hearing Solution in Michigan is apparently kaput. Phones disconnected and website down. The local chamber of commerce shows them permanently closed. Will Signia honor my warranty? Am I on my own? Has anyone in the USA dealt with a similar situation?

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:frowning: they didn’t even give you notice?

Signia will honour your repair warranty, but if you want audiological services with a different provider you’ll have to pay for their time whereas you might have had a service package with your original provider to cover ongoing assessment and adjustment, etc. If another clinic is sending your devices for repair, they may also charge a shipping and handling fee that would otherwise have been covered under your service package. Or if a dead device goes for repair and returns without your settings, you’d have to pay the new provider to refit them (original provider has your settings).

No notice. I have not been able to find out what happened to them. Blue Cross/Blue Shield still lists them as s provider even.

This happened to me with the 1st pair of aids I got. I actually had a follow up visit scheduled and went there to find the office closed with nothing in there. I contacted the manufacturer and they set up an appointment with another audi in a nearby town. I went to her and she did a 1 time “courtersy” adjustment. This was in 2004 . I struggled by with those aids for 2 more years until my insurance would pay their copay amount of $1000.00 again on a new pair. I never found out what happened to the provider. That next pair was a set of Oticons that worked very well for quite a few years. Then I got my 1st pair thru Costco and they have been my provider since then. My 1st pair was a Kirkland brand that worked good, I am now wearing my 3 rd set of Costco aids which are the Phillips and they are doing ok for the past year.

I think this question highlights one of the key drawbacks to the bundled price approach traditionally used by US audiologists and hearing aid chains. If everybody stays put and happy with each other for the reasonable life of the purchased hearing aids, it can work out okay. But if the one side or the other moves away, or the audiologist or hearing aid dealer leaves the practice or shuts down, it can be very unfair, especially to a customer who is six months into new hearing aids.

Edited
@hamjor1 said:

But if the one side or the other moves away, or the audiologist or hearing aid dealer leaves the practice or shuts down, it can be very unfair

This is another advantage of going to Costco for me. I am going back to the West Coast on Monday. There are 2 Costcos within 20 minutes to my home there. However my daughter is also going to be moving but 1.5-2 hours away. I will be spending a lot of time there as well and there is a Costco near her new house also. Bases covered. I feel fortunate to have chosen Costco for my and support.

My hearing aids are not locked I have reprogrammed them some myself in fact.

I bought Phonak Marvels from a Connect Hearing office 10 minutes away. Six months before the warranty was up, they closed the office and transferred my records to an office an hour away. No notice. I only discovered that office was closed by driving past. To get my end-of-warranty check/repairs, I had to make the two-hour round trip TWICE because the first time, one of the aids was returned dead.

Connect Hearing is owned by the parent company of Phonak. It was bad enough that the fitters in that office were incompetent, someone new every time I went, blew me off when I wanted a custom mold which the fitting software showed it was needed (I went DYI out of necessity!) but that was the second to last straw.

After that clinic shut down, I went to the next closest (allegedly independent) clinic that did Phonak to get my custom mold. Connect hearing had put me into a P receiver on my “Bad” ear when the fitting software clearly indicated a UP receiver was appropriate. But stupid me, when I requested an ear mold from this new clinic, I didn’t ask questions. I got a P receiver with an earmold, didn’t even get the original receiver back (which makes me suspect they used the original), and when I asked, why not an UP receiver, she just kept repeating, “I can’t.”

This second hearing aid clinic claims to be independent, offering every manufacturer, but when you walk in, there’s a huge Phonak poster staring at you.

I’m disgusted with this.

You have to wonder since, you know, most of the value of the hearing aid is supposed to be in the service, whether the clinic owes the client a refund. Practically speaking it’s probably not going to happen. If a client pushed the issue though, how would they value it?

You can go to signia’s official website to seek local services and they will help you!

Several years ago I ordered a new pair of , they required 50% down. :unamused: Notified a week later that they had closed shop, each partner blamed the other. It took 4 years & involvement by the MN Attorney General (several people were scammed) to get my money back. One of the many reasons that now I purchase on eBay & program them myself.

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