When I was at the gym it was during overnight cause mine is 24/7 and the person broke a bunch of locks to get in lockers and stole my bag where my hearing aid was in a portable drying case. I wasn't the only one so I don't think they were after my hearing aid but, I was convinced that it was on eBay because the guy selling was from my city and said he acquired from an estate sale and wouldn't give me the serial. If I had the serial I would of been able to get ahold of police to possibly retrieve it.
You should have informed Ebay.
They do nothing. You fill in a detailed report and they send you an email back days later (when the listing has closed) telling you that if items are stolen from you personally call the police. If you know them to be stolen property but they aren't your property then that's none of your business, which isn't even correct as the police can still take a stolen property report for the offence of passing on stolen goods. I've reported large number of hearing aids stolen as there are lots of UK health service aids for sale on eBay and it's
impossible to buy these, so the seller cannot own them. They pretend to lose a pair and sell them. Some areas charge for replacement hearing aids but it's still often less than what they get for reselling them. eBay refused to delist items which are demonstrated to be stolen as they weren't stolen from me.
Back to the OP
There is not a nice broad black line between "expert" and "layman" that people feel it's necessary to draw. There are various shades, the dodgy audi who only wants to make a sale, the person who knows about their hearing aids simply that they are "beige ones" or possibly even that they take orange batteries. The vast majority of hearing aid wearers identify the type of aid they have by its physical characteristics, such as "it's an in the ear one". Those people should certainly not get involved in the second hand hearing aid market.
Many sellers know nothing of the market, I lose track of how many times I have seen "I know nothing about hearing aids but it works perfectly" - how the dickens would you know? Or they copy and paste something from the manufacturer site that doesn't apply to the specific model for sale. Not sure if it's round again but there was a Milo UP on for months which had the bit about "The Milo is suitable for mild to profound hearing loss" - well yes, the Milo product range
as a whole is suitable for mild to profound, the Milo UP is suitable for severe to profound only. And who in the world is buying second hand custom products? Who knows, but they sell, people who know nothing about hearing aids just get one and shove it in their earhole, knowing not enough to realise it's not working for them.
But then there are other people, folks who frequent audiology and hearing aid websites, who have done detailed product research and truly understand their hearing loss and what they want to do with it. I know about fitting ranges, overfitting problems, underamplification problems, program slots, etc. I know a certain amount about responses and what I am trying to achieve. I know that automated fitting software will do a lot of the initial work for me and if I don't go too mad deviating from the recommended fit then I won't blow my head off. I don't claim to have all the knowledge that an audiologist has, but then again I don't need it. I don't need to know how to fit Oticon hearing aids, paediatric hearing aids, reverse slope losses, all I need to know about is the type of loss I personally have and the type of hearing aids and programming software I personally have. That's a cut-down range of experience that is necessary and I don't feel the need to draw a line and say I must be incapable of making simple adjustments because I am not an audiologist. I can decide I want a T program in slot 2 instead of Music and it will do me no harm at all to swap them myself.
It's too simplistic to divide people into the two camps and say "everyone needs an expert" - I will buy second hand Phonaks which program via iPFG because, to the extent I need to be able to do so for my own needs only, I can do that. I wouldn't touch anyone else's hearing aids with a barge pole, but I know what I like the sound of and what I don't. I don't need to try to describe what I am hearing to a third party expert for him to hit the button I would have hit anyway!
If you think you know enough to jump in there, jump right it, buy off eBay, but take precautions. Don't buy from someone who hasn't ever worn hearing aids unless you can agree a return policy. Who knows if they are right or not when they say they work perfectly but haven't been worn for 3 months? Most people can recognise a camera which works (takes pictures) or doesn't (doesn't take pictures), an iPod which works (plays music) or doesn't (doesn't play music) but if people don't know about hearing aids then only buy at a price where you are prepared to take a punt.
In terms of technology, go with what you personally need. Some people are snapping up analogue hearing aids because they still want them. Just because technology is old doesn't automatically make it bad, though you will have to make sure you can still get programming support from somewhere for older instruments, which is usually the tricky bit. Some people need the nice new shiny bells and whistles, some people just need stuff louder and that's the end of it. If you can get it programmed and maintained (or don't mind replacing it if it breaks) then any age of technology which suits you is fine. If you would be buying a very simple new hearing aid there's no reason not to buy old tech. If you have demanding listening needs, get something more recent.
As far as proof of need, some sellers take it seriously, others write the FDA statement in their listing to cover themselves then mail you the hearing aid.
