I purchased my PHONAK Hearing Aids just over 2 yrs ago, when living in Las Vegas, NV. I have, since, moved from Vegas to Boise, ID. My $4,000.00 Hearing Aids suddenly stopped transmitting sound about 6 weeks ago. Batteries fully charged, NOTHING!!!! I've called several hearing aid offices in Boise and NOBODY will touch them, since they were not purchased in Boise. I can find no online reference for anyone in Boise that represents this Company. It's dawning on me that I would have to fly back to Vegas, with an appointment to see the rep at my original point of purchase. At my own expense, no less, for airfare, hotel, rental car, food etc. This is an INTERNATIONAL CO!!!! I am in complete disbelief that $4,000.00 worth of equipment, and a 3 yr warranty, are worthless now that I have left Vegas. I am angry, and in shock, since this purchase was "out of pocket" and considered a Major Purchase that would take me through the last of my SENIOR years. I'm devastated that this Company does not support it's customers and would never recommend the PHONAK brand to anyone, anywhere, EVER!!!! PS, The Phonak devices NEVER approached the life changing hearing quality that the sales rep had led me to expect with the PHONAK brand... A huge FAIL all around... read more

PHONAK IGNORES CUSTOMERS' CONCERNS Phonak hearing aids are not worth a tiny fraction of their exorbitant price. Their sound and intelligibility are dreadful. To make matters worse, their management people don't even have the professionalism, integrity and civility to reply when you try to contact them about these issues. I paid over $2,000 for Phonak hearing aids. I could have achieved the same results with $20 hearing aids. Without hearing aids, speech sounds quiet and unintelligible. With my Phonak hearing aids, speech sounds loud and unintelligible. I paid $2,000 to hear unintelligible speech louder. I also paid $2,000 to hear headache-inducing terrible sound quality (details below). And all the attempts at "adjustments" by audiologists and Phonak agents have failed dismally. After four years of Phonak agents and audiologists stringing me along with "adjustment" attempts, I wrote about my hearing aids' issues in letters to six of Phonak's management, including the CEO, Cathy Jones, in the hope that a Phonak tech expert with IN-DEPTH knowledge would contact me to try to rectify the issues. But no one at Phonak has had the common decency to reply. One of the other people I wrote to is Denver Davis, who has the job title "Customer Service Specialty Manager." Think about it - here is a customer service manager who refuses to respond to customers' concerns. This is certainly an intriguing concept in human resources - employing someone to not do their job. I wonder if Phonak employs a billing manager who refuses to bill customers? Somehow I doubt it. This ploy of not replying to the concerns of a paying customer (especially after they have paid so much money) is crude, crass and cheap - and incredibly cynical, revealing total contempt for customers. This is the absolute pits in terms of professional and ethical standards of conduct. EVADING ACCOUNTABILITY Their motive for not replying to my concerns is obvious. It is to evade accountability and responsibility. The same motive is behind the use of the same lame tactic by business owners and managers who find themselves in the news for committing transgressions. How many times have we heard reporters state that these businesspeople in the news "did not respond to our request for comment." We all know WHY they "did not respond!" There is no legitimate excuse for not replying. If those individuals at Phonak's management felt they could not help me, they could have replied, "Sorry, we can't help you." If they thought I had contacted the wrong individuals, they could have replied, "You contacted the wrong individuals," and referred me to the correct individual, instead of just crassly ignoring me. In fact, all excuses for not replying are, like the two examples I just cited, statements that should go in replies! HOLE-IN-THE-WALL BAR I might expect letters to be ignored by a hole-in-the-wall bar owner, with mob connections, on the bad side of town, but not by the management of an international tech company. This flagrantly callous practice of not replying reveals as much professionalism as not showing up for a job interview, as much moral integrity as standing up a date, as much maturity as a teenager "ghosting" their boyfriend/girlfriend, and as much class as you see in the conduct of the aforementioned hole-in-the-wall bar owners. To put it bluntly, ignoring communications from individuals is quite simply ignorant. It's no coincidence that the word ignore is the root of the word ignorant. What a pitiful state of affairs - today's business managers are so lacking in initiative that the most imaginative strategy they can come up with for evading accountability is the worn-out, predictable, dull-witted, crass, crude ploy of ignoring complaints and investigations, in the hope that they will go away. PHONAK HEARING AIDS' DREADFUL SOUND QUALITY Now I will explain the reason for my complaint to Phonak, by recounting my experience with their substandard (but expensive) hearing aids. My natural hearing loss is greatest with higher frequency sounds. As a result, some spoken words are unintelligible. As I stated above, my Phonak hearing aids make those words louder, but still unintelligible. And, in terms of sound quality, everything sounds far worse than my natural hearing, quickly inducing physical headaches. Natural speech has a "telephone" quality. Background noise is unbearable (regardless of settings). On electronic devices (radio, tv, smart speakers, phones, etc.), both speech and music sound dreadful. Speech on those devices has a harsh, grating, distorted, high-pitch sound, like cartoon characters shouting over a telephone; and much of it is unintelligible. In music, singers sound like the Chipmunks, instruments don't even sound like instruments; and I frequently fail to recognize songs I have known all my life because the melodies are obscured. ... AND THEY DON'T EVEN HAVE THE INTEGRITY TO RESPOND WHEN YOU CONTACT THEM ABOUT THESE ISSUES! read more