I had an old patient whom I’d recently refit call me yesterday with a question about an ad running in our local newspaper, “The Florida Today”.  In this four full page, color ad, is depicted the very hearing instrument system that I recently fit to my old patient.  Amazingly, this local company is “Introducing” the system I’ve been fitting for over a year, only offering to do it for a, buy one get one free price.  A great deal right?

Well maybe.  Check a little further and you’ll see that the very  Sona system that they were advertising is a Sonova line that they announced six months ago, has been merged with their Unitron line and is actually going away.  

So this outfit was "introducing" their customers to a dead line of equipment that if you’ll check further on, they didn't actually have the stock to sell.   Clearly advertising four locations as the ad did, you would expect that they’d have an adequate stock, and be able to actually sell what they advertised, yet that wasn't the intent of this ad at all.  




The clear intent is twofold; first  to discredit whatever the actual market price for this product was, by putting doubt into the mind of any recent purchasers, and second, to lure other price conscious shoppers with the promise of a half price offer that really didn’t exist.

This type of price and bait and switch advertising is the kind of advertising that gives our whole industry a bad name, yet it continues.  




Often the come on, is a picture of four different styles of custom, or behind the ear hearing aids with ridiculously low prices followed with a little asterisk in really fine print, stating something like, “fits up to 40 dB of loss”. 

Or, more recently even lower fine print limits stating “fits up to 25 dB of loss”.   

Forgetting that 25 db is the recognised end of what is considered ‘normal’ hearing, and that 40 dB HTL is the dividing line between early and moderate loss, the uneducated, or unwary consumer may be lured by such ads to respond thinking they can acutally purchase the hearing help they need for the price being advertised.  


Yet, it is rare, if ever, that these same consumers will tell you that they were able to actually purchase the bargain being advertised. 


In all such cases these folks have succumbed to the age old practice of baiting with something and switching to what you actually want to sell.


So, the next time you read an ad in the paper, or get a piece in the mail indicating a buy one get one free, or offers to sell something way below what the real market is, ask yourself, or those offering the bargain a few questions as follows:


Are they really an authorised dispenser for the product they are offering?


Do they carry the advertised “special bargain” as a part of their regular line?

 Are they really willing to actually sell you what they are baiting you in with?


Another good question to ask, is how long they have been in business, here in town?


For regardless the size, or number of locations listed, our industry is filled with here today, gone tomorrow operators, who have spent thousands, advertising things too good to be true, only to end up  nowhere to be found, leaving the folks they’ve sold seeking help, and service elsewhere.


So, don’t be fooled by ads that sound too good to be true.  They sound that way for a reason, they are.  


Good gear, from any major hearing aid manufacturer involves a significant investment, and it’s worth it.

Or, as the old axiom goes, “you get what you pay for.”