Complaint Review: Sterling Hearing Center

AVOID THIS PLACE, THEY'RE A CON-ARTIST!  DO YOUR RESEARCH ON BBB 1ST!!

My parents were looking for a hearing aid for my father, Petru and this was the first place they looked since it was local to them.  Unfortunately, they were older and did not research the place well enough or they might have been able to find the many consumer complaints filed against them online on Better Business Bureau. 

On 2/18/15 my father met with DR. DAVENPORT at SHC who tried his hardest to get him to commit to buying a hearing aid right away, even though my father said he wanted to think about it some more and possibly shop around.  The Dr. gave him some bull**** about how he will go deaf soon unless he buys the hearing aid and repairs the damages, etc, all of which raised red flags to my parents but they did not question what they thought was a true "Dr's advice".  The doc finally convinced them of buying the hearing aids and trying it out for 5 days.  If they did not like it, they can cancel and get their full refund.  They bought the hearing aids on a Wednesday and returned them two days later on Friday 2/20 (picture of the return receipt attached) after finding similar ones at Costco for half the price (around $2,600).  The Dr. did not want them to come into the office knowing full well they wanted to return the hearing aids and did his best to try to get my parents to keep them over the weekend.  My father insisted on coming in that Friday before their 5-day cancellation time period ended and forced the office to make them an appointment to return the hearing aids.  Dr. Davenport reluctantly completed the return himself and made my folks pay a $600 return fee, which was in tiny print on their contract that the Dr. neglected to mention when he said "full money back with refund".  My parents paid the $600 fee, gave them their hearing aids and went home.

The following week, they got a bill from Allegro Credit Company, the care credit company used to finance the hearing aids associated with the office saying they owed their first payment.  They phoned Allegro to tell them it must be a mistake, since they returned the hearing aids and have a copy of the return receipt.  Allegro said they cannot acknowledge the return unless they receive confirmation from the Dr office.  My parents phoned Dr. Davenport, who said he refused to give Allegro this confirmation and said he would mail my parents their hearing aids back.   You see, Dr. Davenport had already received payment for the hearing aids in full by Allegro and did not want to give the money back to the credit company for the return, so instead he decided to rip-off my parents and take his chances with that outcome, probably something he's done in the past and gotten away with many times before. 

We have since filed a case with the BBB and in the process of filing a suit with Small Claims Court.  I hope you heed my warnings about this horrible place.  They cannot keep doing this to poor old people.

Sarah C.