Helio has this policy they call the “30 Day Happiness Guarantee”, which is basically that if you’re not satisfied for whatever reason, you can cancel your service within the first 30 days, paying only the pro-rated service you’ve used. Sounded good, and the Drift had the potential to be a pretty good phone, so I tried it.

After about 11 days I decided that the service wasn’t for me, so I bid them a fond farewell — or so I thought. That was December 12th that I cancelled my account, and in a few days it’ll be 100 days that they were supposed to have sent me a refund. For reference, their official policy is that refunds should take a few weeks, not to exceed 59 days. Well, we’re way past 59 days here, and we’ve also reached the end of my patience.

After calling about five times they created an escalation for my problem and assigned a guy, Zach, to the case — this was about two weeks ago. Zach was friendly and seemed intelligent. He called me back within the 72 hours he said he would, and promised to keep me updated as to the status, and manner, of the refund. I haven’t heard from him since. I called back this morning to figure out what was going on only to be told that they were waiting on the finance department to do its thing and that Zach would call me back within 24-72 hours. Where have I heard that befo… oh yeah! It’s the same fucking thing they told me a few weeks ago!

So if you’re considering trying out a Helio, be sure you do your homework first — it’s a long commitment whether you keep the service or drop it. Does anyone know if there’s some sort of legal requirement for a company to give a refund within a particular timeframe?