Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!yale!bunker!hcap!hnews!129!26!Jack.O'keeffe
From: Jack.O'keeffe@f26.n129.z1.fidonet.org (Jack O'keeffe)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Re: Use FM ALD, not helmet
Message-ID: <14403@bunker.UUCP>
Date: 25 Sep 90 02:45:30 GMT
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Index Number: 10615

[This is from the Silent Talk Conference]

Hi there Anniewich, and welcome back from the "BIG D".  We missed
you.  Even BB's surprise appearance on the echo couldn't make up
for you being away :-)    Don't they have any PCs in Dallas?

 AS> I have a question about trying out hearing aids - don't the
 AS> dealers give you a trial basis to experiment with the aids for
 AS> a few weeks before purchase?  Or even if you don't purchase
 AS> them?

Annie, about fifteen years ago, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
proposed a Trade Regulation Rule that would require a trial period
on all hearing aid purchases.  After TEN YEARS studying, surveying,
holding hearings, gathering testimony amounting to an unbelieveable
60,000 pages of documents, the FTC decided NOT to adopt the rule.
I believe it has the hearing aid dealers that "convinced" the FTC
the rule was not necessary..

(That's the way our Federal bureaucracy operates.)

In the wake of this non-action by FTC, some states adopted consumer
protection rules requiring that hearing aid purchasers have a right
of return.  Pennsylvania was NOT one of those states.  I don't know
whether Oklahoma adopted a guaranteed return rule or not.

We continue to hear horror stories of people, especially old people,
who have been victimized by sleazoid dealers.  To protect against
this, insist that you be given a free trial period.  If the hearing
aid dealer doesn't want to guarantee this - in writing - find another
dealer who will.  And be sure you can find him again in case it is
necessary to return the aids.  Beware of the ones selling door-to-door
or out of motel rooms.

 AS> While I've never been able to wear an aid, I did try them out
 AS> when I was a child and again after I reached adulthood with no
 AS> results other than amplifying the sounds (some extremely nerve
 AS> wracking since I didn't need the amplification in the low
 AS> frequency) and they were used for a period of several weeks at
 AS> no charge.

You might want to try again, Annie.  The available aids are still
terribly primitive, the last bastion of analog audio technology,
but they are a bit better than they were several years ago.  Sadly
the emphasis remains where it always has been, on cosmetics and
concealment, not on better hearing.

... Caveat Emptor!

--
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