# Refund policy

This page is the formal policy. The TL;DR is: we refund unused, unconsumed funds within 30 days of payment. We don't refund consumed bandwidth, expired IPs, or referral credits.

## What's refundable

| Item                                      | Refundable?                              | Window                    |
| ----------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------- | ------------------------- |
| Unused prepaid balance                    | Yes, pro-rated                           | Any time you have balance |
| Top-up that you haven't yet drawn down    | Yes                                      | 30 days from charge       |
| Subscription canceled mid-period          | Pro-rated for the unused portion         | Within the period         |
| ISP batch released early                  | No refund for remaining days             | n/a                       |
| Annual commit canceled mid-term           | Refund at monthly rate for unused months | Any time                  |
| Consumed bandwidth (residential / mobile) | No                                       | n/a                       |
| Used scraping API requests                | No                                       | n/a                       |
| Referral credit                           | No (it's earned, not paid for)           | n/a                       |

## How to request

1. **Billing → Refunds → Request refund**.
2. Pick the line(s) you want refunded.
3. Add a reason (optional).
4. Submit.

Processing time:

* **Cards**: 5–10 business days back to the originating card
* **PayPal**: 1–3 business days
* **Wire**: 5–10 business days; bank fees on your side
* **Crypto**: 1–3 business days, paid back in the same coin to the original sender address

We process refund requests within **2 business days**. If approved, the time above is the bank settlement window after that.

## What "consumed" means

For residential and mobile:

* Bytes that left the helodata gateway count as **consumed**
* Includes target-side errors — if the target returned a 500, the bytes still left our gateway, so they're billed

For ISP:

* An IP is consumed by the **day** — even if you never connected to it, it's reserved for you that day
* Releasing an IP mid-period stops future days from being billed but doesn't refund days already passed

For top-ups:

* Funds you haven't yet drawn from balance are refundable
* Once drawn, see consumption rules above

## Annual commit refunds

If you cancel an annual commit mid-term:

```
Refund = (12 × monthly_rate) − (months_used × monthly_rate) − (annual_discount_amount)
```

In plain English: you pay the monthly rate for the months you used, and lose the annual discount on those months. The remaining months are refunded.

Example: $5,000 annual commit (=$5,556 at monthly rate − 10% discount), used 4 months:

* Effective monthly rate: $463 ($5,556 / 12)
* Refund: $5,000 − (4 × $463) = $3,148

## Disputes vs refunds

A **dispute** is what you do when an invoice or a charge looks wrong. A **refund** is what you do when the invoice was correct but you want money back.

* Wrong invoice → Dispute (see [Invoices](/account-and-billing/invoices.md))
* Correct invoice, want money back → Refund (this page)

Don't initiate a card chargeback before talking to us — it costs us a fee, freezes your account during the resolution period, and rarely ends up in your favor.

## Fraud / abuse refunds

If your account was compromised and credentials were used by someone else, we will refund:

* The unconsumed balance
* Bandwidth consumed by the attacker, **if you reported within 7 days of the first malicious charge**

We may ask for:

* A police report or fraud claim ID
* Confirmation that you've rotated credentials and tokens
* Logs from your side showing when you noticed

## Refunds and accounting

Refunds appear in **Billing → Invoices** as a **credit note** referencing the original invoice. Tax (if any) is adjusted automatically.

For Pro+ plans paying by wire, refunds default to balance credit unless you specifically request a wire-out (which incurs the bank fee).

## What we won't refund

* Bandwidth or requests already consumed
* ISP batches released early (current period is sunk cost)
* Referral credit (we didn't charge for it)
* Time you spent integrating
* Loss of business due to outage (we maintain a status page and SLA credits — see [Fair-usage policy](/resources/fair-usage.md))

If you think your situation is exceptional, email **<billing@helodata.com>**. We're reasonable.


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