Helio

*This is directed to the cell phone provider and not this particular store.
Dear Helio,
I love my Ocean and all the things it does for me. When I first started this relationship, I expected more from your buddy beacon feature, but what can I say. Things are often too good to be true in regards to cell phone companies like you. I should have known from the start that you were a tease.
I would rather pay less and get just as equally amusing service as with ‘Getro’ PCS.
I wish I could say it has been good while it lasted.
Yours (not for long!) Truly,
Lynsey Rene Taylor
PS
I’m dumping you as soon as my contract is up.
I’m already flirting with AT&T and Metro.

Fuck Helio!
The people working there have their friends hang out and it gets pretty annoying because they rush on whatever they’re doing for you to get back to hanging out with their friends. The phones are nice. I cancelled my service back in April and I STILL HAVEN’T GOTTEN MY 100 DOLLAR REFUND! THATS 7 MONTHS! When you cancel your service you have to call some place over seas. I called multiple times checking back on my refund everytime they told me that it was on the way and I’d receive it shortly. I still haven’t got it.
FUCK HELIO! ahaha

Helio is not your average cellular service. I did not purchase the phone from the store, but from an authorized retailer. I was ready to move over to a new network and Helio seemed to fit the bill.
I started with the Ocean, a wonderful device that has many of the features I want and almost none that I didn’t. And, at $ 200, it was a great alternative to the iPhone.
I have to say though, that where Helio does great with Service plans and devices, it loses in it’s customer service hotline. I had to call twice to get my phone activated, due to a rather frustrating conversation with a rep who did not speak English. Also, I ordered a phone case from the website, thinking that I would receive it in a week. It is now 3 weeks later, and I have not recieved it yet, due to the fact that they shipped it (a $ 19 phone case) Fedex ground with Signature required?! I also never received confirmation that the order had been processed or shipped. Two stars lost for this.
Other than those two snafus, I couldn’t be happier with the clarity of my calls, internet access, or anything else about the device and my service!

This is a review on the store, NOT the service. There’s is an address tied to «Helio» so this review should be for the store.
I bought my phone from Chelsea who was VERY HELPFUL and friendly. Even when I had a problem with my phone, she was able to help me out in person.
The service has been good to me. Their phone customer service is ok at best.

I was very interested in Helio. I waited for long enough that the Ocean, the dual slider with the QWERTY keyboard came out. But I needed 1 thing… I needed to sync my calendar with my phone. I was coming from a Treo, and it was very important to my daily functioning. Well, I talked to 3 representatives from Helio. The first one didn’t know. The second one said yes. The third one said yes.
So off I go, with my new Ocean. I open up the box and there is a USB to Ocean cable, and a CD in there. But when I put in the CD, it’s only a soft copy of the manual (no hard copy provided…). So I go to the website. There is NO software for the Ocean at all. so it looks like that cable does nothing.
Well now I’m worried. So I start talking to tech support. They have a hard time understanding the question. They seem to think I want to sync my contacts. Great. So after a little over a month of back and forth, it comes out. I need Microsoft Exchange Server to do that. Which means I would need to pay thoughsands of dollars to sync my phone. Oh, and now it’s conveniently past the 30 day return policy, and they don’t want to return the phone. Their support just gives me the continual run around. It looks like now I’ll have to go to the BBB.

If I could give zero stars I would…
Hands down one of the worst companies to deal with. Going on 3 months of waiting for a refund. Weekly calls and empty promises from managers, supervisors, tier 3 support, billing.
No one at helio has a clue what is going on. I have even gone as far as filing complaints with the Better Business Bureau to try and get something done.
Avoid Helio at all costs… and if you join them I pray you never have to return something for a refund.

I got a Helio way back in September of 06. Yes, I know. I’m so ahead of my time.
Back then, you had two options — Kickflip or Hero. I went with a Kickflip. I actually bought it over the phone, since there were no retail stores in the area at that time (I’m only posting it to the Palo Alto store’s listing because my experience was in this area; I have nothing against the retail staff here). Anyway. Right off the bat, they charged me something like $ 150 because they said my credit was sucky. Ok, not a huge deal — but no other wireless carrier has ever given me flack. They ooh’ed and ahh’ed about the happiness guarantee and shipped off my pricey new toy within the week. It was cute. Unfortunately, it was totally unusable. The customer support reps (call center) gave me the runaround for a week about why they had not yet successfully ported my old number. By the time it actually got hooked up, I was already on the verge of canceling my contract — but I didn’t. I kept the service for about two months and over that span of time, had a lot of frustration. Firstly, there is little to no support (or at least at that time there wasn’t) for the handsets. You get a pdf online to some random Korean manufacturer’s incomplete manual and that’s it. Any and all e-​mail and phone calls I made were pretty frustrating. On more than one occasion, I got someone at their call center who actually badmouthed the service himself and agreed with me that it wasn’t worth the money. Ha! Another annoying thing is that they have a lot of abnormal charges. You will even eat up minutes to be on the phone with THEIR customer support line. Anything that goes over your allotted monthly plan = muy expensive. More expensive than the Sprint plan I fled to try this noob company out — and that’s why I left, cancellation fee and all.
I see they have a few more (better) phones these days and I’m sure the retail presence helps, too. If people are having good experiences, cool. But I’m back with Sprint (which is the network they piggyback off around these parts, anyhow) and am paying less money for a better phone. It was an expensive lesson learned.

5 Stars for the Store
0 Stars for the Company
The store was great about getting me the new Ocean phone when it came out and giving me a good deal on it. I tried it out for a few weeks and ended up returning it. The store was great about refunding me my money right way. If you want to try them out I highly recommend going to the store instead of ordering online or over the phone.
The company sucks. The customer service is rotten. They have poor record keeping and don’t do what they say they are going to do. The phone, even the Ocean, isn’t all that. Call their corporate offices in LA if you are having trouble getting your money back or are having an issue with them. That is seriously what it takes. I was so fed up with getting the run around with customer service and the fact that they were holding a decent chuck of MY money that I was considering filing a small claims suit, but then I called the corporate offices and things were resolved about 10 days later.
So be warned about Helio, and if you must give it a try then use the good people at the store to help you navigate if any problems arise.

not only do i caution you not to sign up for this awful service, i FORBID you to do so. i am so happy i can finally write this review, now that the mess has been officially cleared up.
i was referred to helio and signed up the first weekend of february, i was given a lot of discounts which i first thought was very generous but now i question if it was just them being desperate for a subscriber. a week later i brought it back to cancel it for several reasons: they didnt port my number over, they took it from verizon & never successfully brought it helio so i was without a phone for over a week while paying for BOTH bills. when i called to get help, they kept blaming verizon & pushing me back «3−7» days or so. also the phone, though filled with many features, was bulky and the internet didnt sign on to many sites and it didnt help to have internet/​gps/​messaging if you dont have a qwerty keyboard. i could’ve cancelled my phone for any reason in the world, i was within my right of having 30 days to try it out. when i came back, all of the employees gathered to contest it, telling me to give it a chance and that they would match my better billing plan with an employee discount plan. a bit intimidated, i left (phone in tow). they never followed through & it was just way too much trouble to get a number to port & a phone to work so i came back the following weekend, and refunded everything & was told by refunding my merchandise — i was automatically cancelling my service. well, im not stupid — i called to follow up a few days later and verify my cancellation. throughout every call to helio (porting, customer service, cancellation), and there were PLENTY calls, i wrote down every agent name, ID number, date/​time, and content of conversation. i read the consumerist, i know whats up.
a few months later, end of may, i get several calls from an unknown number which i call back to find out it is a COLLECTION AGENCY. apparently helio did NOT cancel my service despite my refund & phone call to cancel. they billed me for about $ 200, without ever sending me a bill or written communication. when i called and spit back every agent name/​ID/​conversation, the CSR on the phone told me that helio stores are not necessarily the responsibility of helio the company — and they dont follow the same policies/​procedures! are you kidding me?! and he said i need to contact someone at the store and have them provide proof that i refunded it. when i asked if he had the same computer systems at the stores, he said maybe and that he doesnt know & he has no proof of my cancellation, i’ll have to figure something out if i wanted it to be resolved. sorry, should i be getting paid your call center salary since i am doing the footwork for your negligence? he even had the NERVE to tell me to just pay the money now and if (IF!) it ever gets resolved, helio would refund me. I REFUSE to pay a cent to something i don’t owe. after i pull out receipts and a banking statement of refund, i call back and get a friendlier CSR and she says there actually is a note within 30 days of my service of cancellation but it was never processed for «whatever reason». that reason probably being because you have NO subscribers, horrible customer service, accuse people of not cancelling their service, and would hope to drag out the drama and collect money from people who «owe» money and hope they will give up and just oblige to keeping the service. way to run a business, Helio.
i followed up with the collection agency who dismissed the case & followed up with helio to show my balance was at zero and my account was permanently closed. right? NO. i got a bill AGAIN the following month. repeat this process and finally, sometime in June, this was all resolved.
i should’ve known this place was a scam when there were NO customers in the store EVER and the employees didnt use their helio phones, instead they played with their sprint/​cingular phones while working.
seems like what happened to me is common with this company:
and

should you ignore my advice and face this drama with helio, contact
and the better business bureau.
this is a ridiculously dishonest company with rude/​ignorant CSR’s and completely lacks customer service. i have never in my life been called by a collection agency, i literally screamed «WHAT!!!» in my tiny cubicle at work in disbelief at a collection agency calling me. don’t waste your money or time here, and especially don’t waste money you don’t even owe.
i would rather use a styrofoam cup & some string to make a call.
assholes.

«Early Adopter» is my middle name. I’ve been a Helio customer since December ’06 — longer than Unilocaling. Back in the day, I was the first of my friends with a beeper, and the first of my friends with a cell phone. In the past year and a half, I’ve purchased no less than six cell phones…
I actually was one of the first to pick up a Helio from this flagship store — a Samsung Drift, a few days before their official launch. The service is helpful, if a bit clueless about their own products — Helio, please staff your shifts with at least one phone uberdork! At least they hooked me up with some decent discounts on their few, overpriced accessories.
I switched from Cingular to Helio after Cingular merged with AT&T, significantly increasing their network traffic while selling off 40% of their relay towers, causing 95% of my calls from my home and my office to drop within the first few minutes.
Helio is a boutique cell phone carrier (MVNO) that piggybacks off the Sprint, Alltel, and Verizon networks. What does that mean to you? Top-​of-​the-​line air quality that blows AT&T away, while giving you polite, helpful, quick customer service that you cannot get from Sprint, recently rated one of the companies with the worst customer service in the U.S.
That being said — buy a Helio, but don’t buy one from here.
When I picked up my Drift, I got a good discount, but I was locked into a two-​year contract. If I had purchased the phone online, through a MySpace promotion, there would have no contract whatsoever.
Fast forward to May ’07: I show up on the launch day for their new 3G slider phone, the Ocean. They say it’s $ 300 with new activation only, or $ 500 retail. Show up June 1 and we’ll sell you one for $ 300.
Except that I just picked one up from EB Games/​Gamestop — the video game franchise you can find in nearly every mall across America — for $ 300 with $ 50 bonus store credit. (Not to mention that you can trade in old games for store credit toward the purchase of your new Helio phone…) You can find out more about the participating stores here:
Important note to Helio (an Earthlink/​SK Telecom partnership) big wigs: if you’re going to set up flagship stores, provide top-​of-​the-​line service and top-​of-​the-​line service plans. Why would I ever go to your flagship store if I can get more information and better price plans through your affiliates?
P. S. The Korean Samsung phones are terrible. The Drift has poor battery life and the keypad feels cheep. It’s not as bad as any Nokia, but still, a poor flagship phone for your big launch. The also-​Korean-​made Pantech Ocean is a far superior, more solid feeling phone — if a bit beefy. Still, it runs rings around the feature-​poor Treo line or the fugly Sidekick.

+ cool retail space.
+ cool phones.
+ cool artwork.
+ cool manager.
i’d consider switching from cingular to try out one of helio’s phones…

I signed up for the Helio service after being told by an in-​store (Palo Alto Store) sales rep. that I could try it out for 30 days without charges, other than the tax on the retail price of the device. There was no mention of usage charges or, as I found out later when I called Helio to cancel, that once a bill is received by the consumer, Helio then considers the consumer 100 percent responsible for usage charges (I still don’t get why this would be the clincher for them). After using the service for 30 days, I decided not to keep the service. Even though I liked the GPS feature (Buddy Beacon) and the signal strength was really good (Helio uses both Verizon and Sprint networks to provide broad cell coverage), I couldn’t justify committing to a 2 year contract when I already have cell service. When I went back to the store to cancel, I was told by the store manager that I would have to make a phone call to complete the cancellation process which I alluded to above. I thought this requirement was somewhat annoying and made it more difficult for the consumer to terminate the service. This is obviously a poor customer retention ploy. After discussing this with a friend, we both felt that Helio should take care of all cancellation process details without much input from the customer. The current process seems to be focused on retaining the customer against their wishes which directly contradicts the seamless termination process presented by their sales people at the point of sale. In fact, when I called the number to complete the cancellation process, I was told that the store in Palo Alto is an «independent retailer». How that was relevant to my situation I’m still not sure, but it gave me the impression that there is a major disconnect within Helio that consumers need to bring to their attention so they can correct it and not be victims of it. I was very disappointed with Helio’s customer service and there is absolutely no possibility of me subscribing to Helio’s service in the future or recommending it to anyone I know, much less my friends. In fact, I will do the exact opposite, that is, caution my friends about the poor customer service and the misrepresentation of their service terms by their sales staff. On a five star scale, I would give Helio zero stars, but since Unilocal won’t let me do that, I’ll give them 1 star.
Recently, Helio zeroed out my account so I’ve decided to up their rating to 2 stars. I would have given them 3 stars, but they took over 2 months to resolve the issue.

Rock pile (n) — when retail employees form a social cluster.
Booth babe (n) — able to promote rocks to cave men because of their «personality»
Red zone (n) — area in a booth were customers are ready to buy, try or register. It can be a register, bar table or kiosk
Orange in Philly used to have a center where they sell low cost food and drinks. Then they’d promote a bank account in exchange for $ 1.25 hot chocolate and a cookie combo deal.
What do you get at helio. A surprised look from the rockpile in the red zone.
The store has zero retail traffic
Helio has great space and super attractive store lighting, but I never see their store very full…
I have an idea. Hire booth babes. Well funded companies with horrible offerings always are bountifully stocked with trade show hotties.
*** UPDATE — Just nominated for Deathwatch 2007 ***
it was 8:40pm on a Wed.
It was closed early.
A retail shop not keeping hours is a sure sign of imminent death