What is Helcim, and why does it have my card?
Helcim is the company that takes card payments for Vauz. It is our payment processor: a business whose job is handling card payments for other businesses
A paid plan renews by itself every month or every year, so your card has to be kept somewhere to pay each renewal. Helcim keeps it. Vauz keeps none of it
Your card goes straight to Helcim
- You type your card number into Helcim's own form, which opens on top of our card page at pay.vauz.sealzi.com. The number goes from your device straight to Helcim and never passes through Vauz. To check you are on the real page, see Is pay.vauz.sealzi.com really Vauz?
- Vauz never stores your card details: not the number, not the last four digits, not the expiry date. The small print under your card on your dashboard (your account page at vauz.sealzi.com/dashboard) says so: "Your card lives with Helcim, the payment processor. Vauz never stores your card details, not even the last four digits 🔒"
- Helcim also gets your name, your email address, your billing address and the plan you choose. It gets nothing about your vault, the passwords you keep in the Vauz app
What "Checking with Helcim…" means
On your dashboard, press Manage Plan, then Payment method. Your dashboard asks Helcim, there and
then, which card is saved: that is the "Checking with Helcim…" you see for a moment. Then it shows the
card, such as Visa ending in 4242 and Expires 12/28. Nothing of it is kept once you have looked
If there is no Manage Plan button, see Add or replace your card
for the other way in
When a message says "Couldn't reach Helcim…"
Some things your dashboard can only find out by asking Helcim: which card is saved, whether a payment can go ahead, whether a plan has stopped. When Helcim's system does not answer in time, or turns a request down, your dashboard says so instead of guessing. Each message says what that means for you, and most of them say that nothing was charged or that nothing changed. Wait a minute and try again
| Message | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| "Checking with Helcim…" | Your dashboard is asking Helcim which card is saved | Wait a moment |
| "Couldn't reach Helcim for your card details 📡 Try again in a minute" | Helcim did not answer when your dashboard asked for your card. Your card and your plan are as they were | Open Payment method again in a minute |
| "Your card details were looked up a lot just now 🐢 Try again in a few minutes" | Your card was looked up many times in a short while. Each look-up asks Helcim, so your dashboard waits before asking again | Try again in a few minutes |
| "Couldn't check your plan with Helcim just now 📡 Nothing was charged. Try again in a minute" | You confirmed a plan, and your dashboard needed Helcim's latest word on your plan first. Helcim did not answer, so nothing was done | Try again in a minute |
| "Couldn't set that up with Helcim, so nothing was charged 😬 Try again in a bit" | Helcim did not set up the plan you confirmed. Nothing was charged | Try again in a little while |
| "Couldn't reach Helcim to cancel the plan whose payment failed 📡 Nothing was charged. Try again in a minute" | You are buying a plan after a payment failed. The plan whose payment failed is cancelled first, and Helcim did not answer. Nothing was charged | Try again in a minute. See A payment did not go through |
| "Couldn't check your plan with Helcim just now 📡 Your plan wasn't cancelled. Try again in a minute" | You asked to cancel, and Helcim did not answer, so nothing changed | Try again in a minute |
| "Plan cancelled 👋 Helcim is still confirming it, which can take a few minutes", or "Your plan won't renew 👍 You keep it until [date]. Helcim is still confirming it, which can take a few minutes" | Your cancel is done on our side, and Helcim has not confirmed it yet | Nothing. Look at your Plan card again in a few minutes |
| "Couldn't confirm with Helcim that billing has stopped, so your account is still here 🛑 Try again in a few minutes" | You asked to delete your account. It is deleted only once Helcim confirms that nothing more can be charged, and Helcim did not answer | Try again in a few minutes. See Delete your account |
| "Couldn't confirm that card with Helcim yet. Try again in a moment" | On the card page: you typed your card into Helcim's form, but we could not check it with Helcim yet | Press Try again. It checks the same card again, so you do not type it twice |
Other places Helcim is named
On the card page these lines are not errors. They are there to tell you where your card and your address go:
- "Your card is saved with Helcim, our payment processor, and used for your plan's payments"
- "Your billing address goes to Helcim, our payment processor, to work out the tax and check the card. We do not keep it". More in Why is tax added, and can I buy from outside Canada?
- "Enter your card in Helcim's secure form", just before Helcim's form opens
- "Card details are typed into Helcim's secure form and go straight to Helcim, our payment processor. Vauz never stores them", at the bottom of the page
Emails from Helcim
Your receipts come from us, by email and on your dashboard. See Receipts and tax
If a renewal payment doesn't go through, Helcim may also email you about it, as well as our own email. You don't need any link in Helcim's email: to update your card, start from your dashboard. See A payment did not go through
When you delete your account
Deleting your account cancels your plan with Helcim and asks Helcim to remove your saved card. If Helcim cannot confirm that billing has stopped, your account is not deleted: you see the message in the table above, and you try again a few minutes later
Helcim keeps its own record of you and of your past payments, under its own privacy policy, and we cannot delete that for you. See Delete your account and our Privacy Policy (opens in a new tab)