I needed a specific frame and saw that HeliPal had it in stock. After contacting the company, they kindly let me know that their website was incorrect and they did not have the item in stock. This was okay, and we moved on.
A few weeks went by, and I had to make another purchase of a different frame item. As we needed it quickly, the item was purchased with the 'Expedited Shipping' option, adding $75 to the $400+ item cost. A day later, and I received an email from HeliPal support that their website was again wrong, and they did not have that item in stock, and would not have it for at least another week.
I requested a refund for my expedited shipping cost, and the representative, Yannis, told me "Sorry about that we cannot to waive the shipping cost and the expected restock date is around one week".
I immediately asked to cancel my order, and heard nothing back for three days. I ended up disputing the fraudulent charge in PayPal. A few hours later and Yannis again sent me an email telling me to cancel the PayPal dispute in order to send my refund.
DO NOT CLOSE A PAYPAL DISPUTE. If you do this, there is no way to open another dispute if HeliPal does not give your money back. Instead, you are supposed to wait for them to process the refund, and the dispute will be closed automatically.
As of now, I am still waiting for my refund.
Overall, I experienced:
1) Incorrect stock on the website
2) Non refund for 4 day shipping for an item which would not even be in stock for another week
3) Vendor ignored my request for a refund and to cancel the order until prompted by a PayPal dispute
4) Vendor not understanding the way PayPal operates, or was trying to trick me into canceling my dispute
Outcome and Takeaway:
There are many different websites to purchase the items that HeliPal has. Do yourself a favor, do not shop at HeliPal.