HIGH PITCH HIGH VOLUME
ZEITUN, MARILYN
HIGH PITCH HIGH VOLUME Millions fall prey to hearing-aid hustlers BY MARILYN ZEITUN Four years ago, Eleanor Smith of Los Angeles answered a newspapaper advertisement placed by the Beltone...
...She asked for the information and the free model hearing aid that the ad promised...
...There are instances, too, when hearing loss may be a symptom of a more serious illness, and when resorting to a hearing aid instead of seeing a physician can have grave consequences...
...I am so glad that right prevailed," she said after she got her money back...
...The standard hearing aid is a simple device: A microphone, amplifier, and battery are installed in a hard plastic case, and the apparatus is attached to the ear by a piece of tubing set into a soft mold...
...The average device costs between $350 and $400...
...Those who seek recourse from such agencies often encounter delays, unresponsiveness, and industry bias...
...Some hearing losses are temporary, others permanent...
...HIGH PITCH HIGH VOLUME Millions fall prey to hearing-aid hustlers BY MARILYN ZEITUN Four years ago, Eleanor Smith of Los Angeles answered a newspapaper advertisement placed by the Beltone Corporation of Chicago...
...Then she wrote to him, but he didn't respond...
...Smith is less bitter...
...But the aged are not the only victims: Three million children have defective hearing...
...Research for this article was supported by a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism...
...As the record of the hearing-aid industry shows, the prevalent pattern in our society is to address such concerns not with free public screening programs and preventive care, but with a new way of generating profits...
...For obvious reasons, the industry itself doesn't act as a fierce watchdog...
...It can be a result of an attack of German measles or the common cold...
...In 1977, forty-two states had licensing laws for hearing-aid dealers, but these set only minimal standards of education and experience...
...But according to the FTC, "only 2,300 of some 10,000 to 15,000 hearing-aid sellers in the country have successfully completed the certification program...
...There still is not a uniform, industry-wide regulation set by the F T C , " says Bill Rothbard, an aide to FTC Commissioner Michael Pertschuk...
...The outlook, then, is for more Eleanor Smiths and Anne Asburys to be left with defective or useless equipment they bought at exorbitant prices...
...ote: Both Eleanor Smith and Anne Asbury received full refunds for the hearing aids after they complained to the California Department of Consumer Affairs...
...State regulation of the industry is, to say the least, uneven...
...Hearing-aid dealers sometimes sell the devices to people who cannot benefit from them—and whose hearing disabilities require immediate medical or surgical attention...
...Many consumers aren't aware of state regulatory boards that have authority to deal with hearing-aid sales fraud...
...Several weeks later, a salesman appeared at her door...
...But two years later, the salesman who sold her the device was still hawking hearing aids in California...
...Anne Asbury is eighty-four...
...Reagan Administration opposition makes it unlikely that even this diluted rule will be adopted...
...There is a large and lucrative market for hearing aids...
...I hate disagreements, and I am timid about making complaints, but if I didn't make a fuss nobody would," Asbury said...
...I've come to see the doctor to get my ears checked," he said...
...Even some drugs, such as the antibiotic Streptomycin, can induce ear injuries...
...Marilyn Zeitlin is a free-lance writer in Los Angeles...
...He discovered that the chairman of the state's regulatory board was also the owner of the largest dealership in the state, and employed an unlicensed salesman in violation of state law...
...Consumers "are not in a position to effectively protect themselves in the hearingaid marketplace," the Federal Trade Commission concluded in 1978, after listening to weeks of testimony from patients, audiologists, physicians, and hearing aid dealers...
...A while back, I set out to purchase a new hearing aid for her...
...GREG SCOTT Paul Giacobbe, a television reporter, compiled a five-part series on consumers and the hearing-aid industry in Rhode Island in 1978...
...some consumers have paid more than $600 for standard models which are less complex than portable radios or calculators selling for a small fraction of that price...
...Hearing loss has many causes...
...Some vendors, the F T C noted, have little or no education in the anatomy of the ear, the causes of hearing loss, or the methods of hearing assessment...
...He didn't speak English very well, and was sold abili of goods...
...Regulation of the hearing-aid industry has been a dismal failure...
...But he could help: If she bought two small hearing aids, her hearing problems would be over, he assured her...
...The profits will continue to roll in for the manufacturers...
...By conservative estimate, some 14.5 million Americans—one out of every fifteen—suffer some form of hearing loss...
...Regulation functions under serious constraints...
...Furthermore, regulators who perform their jobs effectively can serve to legitimize the market system that breeds the abuses in the first place...
...Unfortunately, says Stephen Kasden, an East Coast audiologist, those who sign the waiver often have hearing problems that could easily be remedied with medicine or surgery...
...In such cases, what might have been a temporary impairment can become a permanent hearing loss...
...The most stringent requirement set by the Federal Government is a Food and Drug Administration stipulation that the purchaser of a hearing aid must have had a medical evaluation within the preceding six months...
...An acquaintance recently told me that her husband was sold a hearing aid "when he really had a brain tumor...
...In two out of three cases," Senator Charles Percy pointed out several years ago, "people with hearing problems go first to the hearing-aid dealer...
...One of my daughters, Carla, now eighteen, has been wearing a hearing aid since she was four years old...
...It may be asking too much of the FTC, or any Federal regulatory agency, to solve this sort of problem within the limits of our economic system...
...A hearing aid does not restore the auditory sense, but simply amplifies all sounds...
...I asked him why he was there...
...Before buying, I did some comparative shopping and found prices for some hearing aids were almost twice as high as for other, comparable devices...
...But the hearing aid is no cure for hearing loss...
...The National Hearing Aid Society, an organization representing dealers, certifies sellers who pass tests and take periodic refresher courses...
...The salesman made me feel important, so important that I just couldn't think straight," she recalled...
...He told her he could improve her hearing...
...In some states, hearing- aid dealers are permitted to work with only a temporary "trainee" license, which they can obtain without passing any qualifying exam—and which they can renew even if they fail the exam...
...And they are not alone...
...The farmer eyed me suspiciously and replied, "But I know he went to college...
...some operable, others not...
...It is suffering "a slow death" at the hands of Reagan's conservative appointees, he adds...
...Corporate interests can marshal substantial legal forces to fend off supervision and control...
...I've personally seen people sold hearing aids and not told they have one of the obvious conditions requiring medical attention," says Dr...
...A loss of hearing was normal for a person of her age, said the salesman...
...He opened the black box he was carrying and set up a portable testing machine on her dining table...
...The price of hearing aids can easily drain the limited resources of the elderly...
...I met an elderly farmer from Illinois in a waiting room of a hearingaid dealer...
...This is hardly the most burdensome regulation ever imposed, and it contains a great loophole: Consumers over the age of eighteen can sign a waiver and skip the medical exam...
...According to the California State Board of Medical Quality Assurance, Smith and Asbury were victims of fraud...
...He introduced himself as Beltone's Los Angeles representative and told Smith he was there to give her a free hearing test...
...It can stem from a buildup of ordinary ear wax...
...But the man inside is not a doctor," I explained...
...Consumers around the country are being sold worthless or defective hearing aids by companies that traffic in such devices...
...Smith made countless telephone calls to the salesman, but "the secretary always said he was out of the office," she recalled...
...Despite many Congressional hearings and thousands of pages of testimony, the Federal Trade Commission has failed to impose any restrictions on hearing-aid vendors...
...She answered a newspaper ad in 1978, and before long "a nice fellow" came to her home, she remembered...
...Lack of consumer awareness is a widespread problem...
...Asbury had been wearing an aid for years, but the salesman said his Beltone model was superior...
...Prolonged exposure to loud rock music or noisy machinery may inflict damage to the hearing organs...
...Eleanor Smith was eighty-seven years old...
...This is true of one fifty-year-old man in particular...
...To remedy the problem of hearing-aid fraud, the Federal Trade Commission set out in 1977 to regulate door-to-door solicitations, aggressive sales tactics, and misleading claims...
...When the new regime came in, it targeted the rule for extinction," says Rothbard...
...She might just as well have thrown her money away for all the good the hearing aids did her...
...She's learned a lesson from her experience with hearing-aid vendors: "When someone butters you up, expect the bite...
...This is why people who wear hearing aids can lose a voice in a din of background noise...
...Asbury paid him $545.00—five times the cost of her old hearing aid, but she soon discovered that the new one was no better...
...Thirty per cent of all adults over the age of sixty-five are so afflicted, "with the figures rising to 90 per cent among those in nursing and retirement homes," according to the Federal Trade Commission...
...Donald Morgan, director of UCLA's audiology clinic...
...But the agency has backed off after encountering strong industry resistance, and is now working for only one reform: the right of the consumer to cancel a purchase after a thirty-day trial period...
...He told me it would screen out all the unpleasant, undesirable noises" and amplify only the sounds she wanted to hear...
...In the early 1900s, the shrewdest leaders of industry recognized that a few token regulations could defuse public pressure for more fundamental changes...
...That tactic is still used today, and it still works...
...We went to the bank together, and I withdrew $1,144.80 for those two hearing aids," Eleanor Smith told me much later...
...often, it can exacerbate the problem...
Vol. 47 • May 1983 • No. 5
