- Hey guys, welcome back to the Dr. Cliff AUD vlog.
This is vlog number 44,
and just like I promised last week,
today's video is going to be about the news report
that was put out there by Channel 3 News
who came out to interview me in my clinic
about these online hearing aids that are being sold.
Not just here in Arizona, but really nationwide.
But just to give you a quick update here,
it was aired last Monday.
So I will go ahead and link that video
in the description below.
It was a really short piece.
It was about two minutes long.
I made a short cameo inside of that video,
but they actually took some footage from my YouTube videos
that I've done on some online hearing aid companies
that are scamming consumers out of money.
Now, if you did not see last week's video,
basically the whole premise of this
was that the attorney general here in Arizona,
Brnovich, actually sent out a press release
a couple of weeks ago talking about how their office
has received hundreds of phone calls from consumers
who've been scammed by these online hearing aid companies.
Now I use the term hearing aid very loosely,
because oftentimes these companies
are just selling a cheap amplifier.
But nonetheless, when consumers are essentially paying money
for these products and the products
that they're getting in return are pieces of junk
that are basically just sourced
from China for a few bucks
and they're sold for hundreds
and almost thousands of dollars here in the United States,
it's something that actually is newsworthy.
And in my opinion, I think that a lot of these companies
should actually be served lawsuits
for what they're doing.
Now, I wanna talk specifically about a particular company
that I think is the worst perpetrator
of these crimes against individuals with hearing loss.
And everything that I'm going to say
from here on out is my opinion.
But I believe that some day has the potential
that these companies are going to have to answer
for the things that they're doing to consumers.
And the thing that is kind of prompted
my discussion right now was that I actually received
a message on Facebook for the new fractional CMO,
or the chief marketing officer for Nano Hearing Aids.
And I will go ahead and kind of put that up over here,
so you can read along with me.
He says, "Hi, Dr. Cliff.
My name is Mike Volkin.
I am the new fractional CMO for Nano Hearing Aids.
Before you delete this email,
I just want to say I come in peace.
I truly appreciate your desire to inform
the hearing loss community about your insights.
Your videos are very high quality.
We have recently updated our CIC hearing aid,
and would love to send you a Nano CIC ultra.
I would also like to send you our BTE models
like the Sigma and the X2R.
I've only been with the company for a couple of weeks,
but upon my hire, Nano was finishing
a long innovation update to their products
and I believe you will be happy with the changes.
Would it be okay if I send you
the new models for re-evaluation?
As you can imagine, your videos are important to us,
as your reviews are damaging to our reputation,
so we want to make sure that you're happy."
Now, I truly believe that this Mike Volkin guy
is coming from the right place.
I think that he wants me to re-evaluate their products,
but I don't think he has a full understanding
of the history of Nano and what they've actually been doing.
I have to assume he's seen my videos
and he has to have some idea
that this company is likely scamming consumers
like crazy, at least from day one.
If you go to their website now,
they've gotten significantly better with that,
but it doesn't change the fact
that they actually served me and said
a cease and desist and told me
to stop talking about their products,
saying that I was getting paid
to do better views of their products,
which is absolutely not the case.
Now, if you go to their website,
you'll notice that they do not have any bad reviews
of their products.
But it only takes you a two second Google search
to find their better Business Bureau listing,
which by the way, they had their accreditation removed.
And it takes a lot to get your accreditation removed
from the Better business Bureau,
'cause basically all they want is your money.
I trust Better Business Bureau,
not at all for anything that isn't accredited by the BBB.
That being said, their consumer reviews,
so consumers can actually post reviews on their platform
and they will leave negative reviews up
about particular companies.
And this is what you find about Nano Hearing Aids.
Now, a side note here,
Nano Hearing Aids operates out of Arizona.
And this is why I believe the attorney general
had to release a statement here inside of Arizona.
Because one of the companies
that I think is one of the biggest perpetrators
of taking advantage of consumers is right here in Arizona.
So what I'm really hoping is that the attorney general here
in this state actually files charges
against Nano and tries to get them shut down.
Now, when it really comes down to it,
Nano probably sell some products that are amplifiers
that could benefit some individuals
with hearing loss to some degree.
However, I do not consider these hearing aids
because they cannot be custom programmed.
You can verify that they're giving
some level of amplification,
but you can't make adjustments to them
to actually match a prescriptive target
for someone with hearing loss.
Now, if you've looked at my Nano CIC hearing aid review
compared to a cheap Alibaba amplifier,
you'll find that the volume control
on that device doesn't actually work.
All it has is a low and high volume setting.
You can't even custom dial in the volume setting.
You either have to max out the volume entirely,
or you have to drop off the volume entirely.
But the reason that I do not like this company a lot
is because anytime that you read a review,
or anytime that I receive a complaint from a consumer,
and this happens a lot,
the thing that happens is they order these products,
they get 'em, they're a piece of junk.
They don't work well for them.
They wanna send them back,
and they send them back and they never get a refund,
unless they hound them over and over and over again.
And sometimes that doesn't even work.
I will link another news article
that was done or a news piece that was done
in Kansas city by an individual
who received hearing aids from Nano.
They sent them back and they would never get a refund.
Well, magically after the news report was run,
this individual didn't get their money back.
In fact, when I was doing a review of the Nano product
and I sent it back for a refund
after I got done with the review,
it took several emails for them
to finally give us a refund.
And I believe that the only reason that they did
is because when we sent the product back to them,
we require that there were signature upon delivery.
So we actually had proof that they had received it.
Now, I wanna say this again.
I think that this Mike Volkin guy
is probably a pretty good guy.
I mean, he has a marketing company
and companies go and hire him,
and so I think that Nano has hired him
to come in and run their marketing.
And I just, I can't believe in good conscience
that this individual knows what this company
is actually responsible for.
I mean, if you would just look
at the Better Business Bureau reviews of consumers
who've been taken advantage of over and over and over again.
And I have some insider info that there may be some
class action lawsuits against this company coming down.
I can't verify that,
but I have some insider information on that.
I just don't see how it would be possibly good
for this individual to get involved with Nano.
And on top of that, even if he does a great job
from a marketing standpoint,
people end up buying their products,
I don't think he's fully aware of the low-quality
of customer service and quality of care
that Nano is giving to their customers.
So I have a favor to ask.
I want you to reach out to this Mike Volkin guy
on his Facebook, on his LinkedIn or whatever,
and if you've had a bad experience with Nano,
let him know of your experience,
so he is fully aware of what he's getting himself into.
Because the last thing that I want is for this guy
who probably has a reputable marketing company
to tarnish his name by working with a company of scammers.
All right, guys, obviously, this topic fires me up
and a lot of people get upset with my opinion
about these online hearing aids
or rather these online amplifiers.
But if cost is a concern for you,
don't go and spend hundreds of dollars
on these pieces of junk.
That hearing aid that I did,
they still sell it on their website
and they've actually increased their pricing on it.
So I bought a $20 amplifier off of Alibaba.
And that thing produced almost identical
to Nano's hearing aid that I reviewed.
Now, I ended up purchasing that hearing aid
for something like 400 bucks
or like 398 something like that,
then they reduced their price down to $249,
buy one, get one free.
But now they're selling that same exact product,
let's see if I can find it.
The Nano CIC digital hearing aid,
they're selling it for $597.
I don't know if you can see that there.
But $597, they are selling this cheap amplifier for.
Now, I've also purchased products
that are around the 30 to $60 range on Amazon
that are virtually identical.
And when you realize that this product doesn't work for you,
you can actually send it back to Amazon
and they will give you a refund
as opposed to what we've seen with Nano were.
Hundreds of people are reporting
that they are returning their devices
'cause they don't work or they stop working after a few days
and they cannot get a hold of anybody,
or if they do get a hold of somebody,
they give them the runaround until they're 45-day
money back guarantee time period runs out.
So do yourself a favor, if you're gonna be buying
hearing aids online, fine, go ahead.
Do it, I don't care.
Chances are, they're not even hearing aids,
they're just generic amplifiers
that just boost the volume of everything.
But at the end of the day, if you wanna buy 'em,
go ahead and buy 'em,
just buy 'em from a place that you know
that you'll be able to return 'em and get your money back.
Okay, guys, I have ranted enough here today.
This video will probably be some kind of fodder
for Nano to send me another cease and desist letter,
which I absolutely welcome.
And hopefully, they end up suing me
so we can bring all of this information to light
on what this company is doing to consumers
with hearing loss.
But as always, I will see you next week.
(upbeat music)