Just returned my Rexton/Siemens/Sivantos aids for refund

For the first time I’ve taken advantage of the 6 month refund-no-questions-asked policy and returned my new Rexton CIC aids. Got them only in August, my second set of aids after having worn Siemens CICs since 2010. Never thought I’d do this, but a series of failures led me to bite the bullet and dump them.
I should add I got these through Costco, who have been very supportive and in no way are in any fault over these issues.
The problem is that when I press the mute/unmute button on my controller, instead of the pleasant little jingle playing quietly, it would randomly go off like the bells in Big Ben, making me jump out of my skin in shock and surprise. Got the same reaction whether I used my controller or my smartphone app, making it clear it was the aids, not the controller causing this.

My audi tried a bunch of things, but none of them worked, and I concluded this was a hardware fault. I met the Rexton rep, who agreed I should return them for repair, which I did. I did say that in my view the volume of the ‘jingle’ rose and fell according to the ambient noise, but was told that no, it is always the same volume. I was given a replacement ‘one-size-fits-all’ pair of aids on loan, and they were fine, and i was able to prove definitively that the volume of the ‘jingle’ is ambient related, putting paid to the rexton rep’s denials.

A week went by, and back they came, with a note to say they replaced the microphone/speaker assembly, on brand new hearing aids, with no comment at all about the reason for return that there was an erratic fault. Annoying that it wasn’t addressed in anyway. I got home, and realised that the pull tags in the CICs to allow easy removal were 4mm longer than when I sent them in, sticking out like in “My Favourite Martian”. Really annoying, showing that the Rexton repair people didn’t make any note of how they received my, and I mean my aids, not theirs, and randomly stuck in any old sized tags they had laying about.

Enough to claim a cash refund? No.

But this was just another in a long string of similar failures by the Siemens/Rexton/Sivantos repair centre suffered by me over an 8 year period, where the only reliable thing about them is their failure to take care, so i thought here we go again, I’m so over it, bugger them, I’ve had enough, I want my money back. I am not prepared to put up with their incompetence for the life of these new aids, even though the sound quality otherwise was excellent.

So I returned them 2 days ago, instant refund by Costco, and got ear canal impressions taken for some GN Resound CICs. Should be ready in a week , so I’m hopeful that they have got their act together better than Rexton.

I do a lot of dirt bike riding, and I can pull my helmet on and off and wear dark glasses at the same time and not have any interference with CICs, something I doubt BTE styles could do.

With CICs I forget they are there. No consideration for glasses/helmets/wind etc. I’ve even forgone bluetooth connectivity this time, as I just never felt the advantage, given I could hold my phone up to my ears in the same way everyone else does, and not have those connect/disconnect moments every time and email or Facebook wanted to send a beep.

My last pair lasted since 2010, with 8+ days being average for the batteries, so longevity is demonstrably up with anything else.

My issue singularly revolved about the second rate support that Rexton/siemens/Sivantos here in Australia provide. I don’t care what claims they may say about their level of service, my repeated experience over many years is that they are slapdash, too slack to note the condition of what they received in for repair and attempt to return it in the same way.