Refund Policy

1. The refund window

You have 30 calendar days from the date of purchase to request a full refund on any paid Helmsmen Lab product:

• The Letter — USD 29 — eligible for full refund.
• The Manual — USD 79 — eligible for full refund.
• The Captain — USD 249 — eligible for full refund.
• The Crew — monthly USD 14 or annual USD 99 — see Section 5 below.
• Implementation Companion — USD 29 — eligible for full refund.

The 30 days are calendar days starting from the timestamp on your receipt. We use the Stripe-recorded purchase time as the source of truth. Time zones never count against you — if you are within 30 days in any reasonable interpretation, you are in.

2. How to request a refund

One email. That is it.

1. Write us at support@helmsmenlab.com from the same email address you used to purchase.
2. Subject line: "Refund — [product name]" — for example, "Refund — The Manual." This is just to route it fast; if you forget, we still process it.
3. No justification required. You can tell us why if you want — the feedback is genuinely useful — but you are never obligated to explain yourself. We will not try to talk you out of it.

You can also reply to any receipt or product email you received from us. As long as the message reaches our inbox within the 30-day window, you are covered.

3. Processing time

We acknowledge refund requests within one business day and process the refund through Stripe within two business days of acknowledgment. Once we initiate the refund:

• Card refunds typically appear on your statement within 5–10 business days, depending on your bank.
• PayPal or wallet refunds usually post within 1–3 business days.
• Bank-debit refunds (SEPA, ACH) can take up to 10 business days.

If you have not seen the refund on your statement within 14 business days of our confirmation, email support@helmsmenlab.com with your receipt and we will chase it down with Stripe directly.

4. Eligibility — digital products

All Helmsmen Lab products are digital. Many countries' standard consumer-protection laws give the seller the right to exclude digital downloads from the cooling-off period once the customer has begun the download. We do not exercise that right. Our 30-day money-back guarantee applies even after you have downloaded, read, listened to, or printed our material.

The only practical eligibility requirements are:

• The request must be made within 30 calendar days of purchase.
• The request must come from the email used to purchase, or include enough information for us to identify the original transaction (receipt number, last four digits of card, or PayPal transaction ID).
• The purchase must be a legitimate, non-fraudulent transaction (see Section 7).

What happens to the files

You keep the workbook. You keep the audio. You keep the PDF. You keep every file we sent you. We do not require you to delete anything, return anything, or sign anything in exchange for the refund. If you find one idea in there that is useful months later, good — that was the point.

5. Subscription refunds — The Crew

The Crew is a recurring membership. Refunds work slightly differently because the product is continuous access, not a one-time download.

• First payment. Your first monthly or annual payment is fully refundable within 30 days, no questions asked — the same as any other product.
• Annual plan, after 30 days. We will pro-rate the unused months back to you on request, minus a small administrative fee equivalent to one month's price (USD 14). This applies up to month six of the annual term; after that, the membership runs to its end and we do not refund the remainder, but you can cancel autorenewal at any time.
• Renewal payments. If a renewal charges you and you forgot to cancel, email us within 7 days of the renewal date and we will refund it in full. We do not penalize you for forgetting.
• Cancellation. You can cancel autorenewal at any time from your customer portal or by emailing support@helmsmenlab.com. Cancellation stops future billing immediately and your access continues until the end of the current paid period.

6. What we do not require

To make the rules transparent, here is what we will never ask of you when you request a refund:

• You do not have to fill out a form.
• You do not have to take a "completion test" or prove you actually read the material.
• You do not have to send screenshots of your highlights or your workbook.
• You do not have to talk to a "retention specialist." We do not employ one.
• You do not have to publicly leave a review — positive or negative.
• You do not have to delete the files from your devices.

If anyone claiming to represent Helmsmen Lab asks you for any of the above before processing a refund, it is not us. Forward the message to legal@helmsmenlab.com.

7. Limited exclusions

We extend the refund offer in good faith. The following narrow exceptions exist to prevent abuse:

• Chargeback abuse. If you file a chargeback with your bank instead of contacting us, we will provide Stripe with the full purchase record. Once a chargeback is filed, we cannot also process a separate refund — the bank dispute supersedes our policy.
• Serial refunders. If a customer purchases, refunds, and re-purchases the same product or downloads it again under a different account, we reserve the right to decline future refund requests from that customer and to deny future purchases.
• Verified piracy. If we discover that a refund requester has uploaded the purchased materials to a piracy site or shared them publicly, the refund offer is void and we will pursue our legal remedies under Section 8 of the Terms of Service.
• Manifest fraud. Purchases made with stolen payment methods are refunded directly to the cardholder, not to the fraudster, and reported.

These exceptions exist on paper. In practice, the people who buy our work and the people who try to game refund policies are almost never the same people. If you are reading this and wondering whether you qualify — you qualify.

8. Taxes and fees

When we issue a refund, we refund the full amount you were charged, including any sales tax, VAT, or GST collected at checkout. We do not deduct payment-processor fees or currency-conversion losses from your refund.

9. Contact us

For any refund request, the fastest channel is email.

If a product we sold you did not deliver what we promised, that is on us. The 30-day window is not an obstacle — it is a guardrail to keep things sane on both sides.