@ozted forget about iYogi, do not renew your subscription, from what I’ve read and heard (just check their videos on YouTube)these guys have no competence whatsoever about anything. If you have an issue, just come to the forums.
@logos, he has no subscription with iYogi. He has a paid version of avast.
BTW, I agree that the best known method to receive avast support is this forum with many avast users advicing (for free), and with the developers also participating (according to what they can).
As I noted in another thread:
You can call IYogi and if you are not satisfied, tell them you are going to file a chargeback. This gets them moving quick because the payment gateway they use is Paypal and if there are enough complaints, Paypal will put a stop on their transactions if they exceed the allowed threshold of chargebacks.
https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?cmd=_render-content&content_ID=security/chargeback_guide
I have been following this thread for a while and Yogi may be for real (a real group), but their competence is another matter.
I have dealt with a number of home users and retirees that have subscribed to IYOGI and have called us virtually in tears because of a host of problems after they have had iyogi support connect “assist” them. The most laughable account was they wanted a extra fee to help resolve a “Virus” problem of, AV won’t update, lockups and so on, which would take a lot of extra time according to the online tech, which he validated by opening the Event Viewer and indicating the red and yellow icons. The short story is that the events weren’t read, the problem being "can’t read/write to HDD), Hard drive faulty, replace Hard Drive, clone, reboot and no errors. Surprise surprise.
I have seen several similar instances of true lack of competence by IYOGI that I could NEVER have faith in them. I believe that the majority of their tech support staff sit behind a console and read a script and have no technical competence at all, it’s all about extracting money and that’s it.
Agreed! After a bad experience with iyogi I found very competent help right here on this very forum.
At first I was hard headed but I learned. I have said this before many times…I would like to see avast
cut iyogi loose. They love to take your money if only to look at your “event viewer”. Which generally has nothing to do with a users issue. 
I’ll join everyone here who questions IYOGI’s competence.
Wish I had known about these forums earlier.
The iyogi genius who insisted a remote session was needed to install the new license I purchased ended up wiping out all the picture, document, and data files on my computer before I could stop him. I saw what he typed in with the delete command but it was too late. Then the jerk told me the files were not deleted, but that those were “temp” files with the same names (supposing I’m entirely stupid since I was dumb enough to call them). When I proved to the genius that the actual files were deleted, he tried to tell me that was because the files had been tagged as infected by a virus. He had no other answer for me or his supervisor (who he only flagged down because he was trying the upsell we are now familiar with from this board) when I pointed out that he had not even run a scan on my computer to detect infections.
End of the day was 6 hours later when the genius, then his supervisor, spent 4.5 hours trying to recover my files with free software downloads. The supervisor was apologetic and urged me to take my computer to a professional to get a better recovery.
Avast should take some responsibility for the unprofessionalism iyogi displays with their b.s. nonsense and pressure to sell us.
Good afternoon
Thank you for taking the time to post on our forum. I am horrified to hear about your experience and I would like to look further into this for you.
May I please ask that you contact me directly by email to: riley at avast dot com and I will escalate this to the highest possible position until it is resolved for you.
If you could send the reference number from your call this would be very helpful and allow me to trace the exact call.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Best regards,
Adam Riley
avast! Third Party Support Manager
Well, today I read that Avast is no longer using iyogi for tech support. The part that gets me is that the Avast people said it is because of recent complaints.
That is total B.S. – My first post here was May 28, 2011, stating how I got screwed out of $169.99. I did my rant, and was contacted by abast via email. Promised that I would receive instructions so I could use my avast pro on two more computers. Well, being quick to react, I posted again stating that Avast was just super to work with. My mistake again. First out $169.99, then I apologize, but never did get the license information.
Consequently I paid for a product I used for a couple of months on one computer. I was never able to install it on my others.
Now, my Avast pro expires. Pop-up after pop-up telling me to renew.
The computer it was installed on is now a standby computer, but had a lot of good apps, like Adobe, hundreds of photos, etc. etc., well over $1,000 worth of programs on the computer.
Well, new story!!! I did an uninstall for avast pro. Seemed to go alright, so now I install AVG. While AVG was running it’s course I went to bed. The next morning my computer was totally dead. No bringing it back. Tried everything but mouth to mouth … then had to do the dreaded recover. Well, guess what, it won’t recover. The damned thing is shot, shot, shot, deader than a door nail.
Did Avast do this? Of course not. Did iYogi have anything to do with it? Who knows. But it does seem sort of fishy that just as soon as I uninstall the avast, my computer is dead.
Oh, BTW, that computer was never right after I installed the pro and followed the directions to go to iYogi service.
I could say I am disappointed, but that would be an understatement. I quit recommending Avast after the first incident … now I will be screaming for people to not go near it for anything. None of this would have ever happened if I had just stayed with McAfee. But feeling that since I had used the free version of Avast that I owed it to them to purchase the one for real money.
Well, no sense in ranting and raving anymore, no one even knows what I am talking about unless they go back to page 4 of the thread and find my original posts
So for now, and probably forever, I HATE AVAST
@ the3 avast hater,
If I understand you correctly, you installed AVG and then your computer wouldn’t work any more and it must be avast!'s fault.
Is it possible that maybe you didn’t properly uninstall avast! before installing AVG ???
Is it possible that there was already a problem on your system before all of this happened ???
At this point, can I suggest that you use the avast! Removal tool:
http://www.avast.com/uninstall-utility
See if that helps. If not, Maybe it’s time to start from scratch.
Remove AVG through the add/remove function and then remove the remainder by using their removal tool which you can find at:
http://singularlabs.com/uninstallers/security-software/
Once that’s done, your system should be clean of the installed AV’s and you can now install which ever Antivirus you choose.
(I’d suggest downloading what ever you choose before removing any protection you currently have or, download and have it ready on a usb drive.)
Good luck.
No, if you read the post I did not state that it is Avast fault that the computer no longer works after trying to uninstall it and install avg.
The problem is that until now I did not know that there was a SPECIAL way to uninstall Avast.
iYogi has been a source of problems for at least a year that I have seen and all you people keep doing is defending Avast over the issues, and giving riley’s email, and nothing at all was done about it for a year.
So the problem is probably that I did not PROPERLY uninstall Avast, crap, no where did I see anything saying that I needed to go to find an uninstall-utility.
The problem I have is I paid for Avast because I had been using the free version and needed a pay version. I felt that was only fair. After I paid I was sent a license that needed your friend (and avast’s friend too apparently) to install it. I was scammed (embarassed about that, but true nontheless) out of $169.99.
During the past year I read countless posts from people who were fleeced out of their hard earned money, and all the forum did was have a couple of lackys teling people to contact adam riley (who didn’t appear to do much) and that he would take care of it.
Never did I see anywhere that Avast was standing behind their product and their mishandling of suport, and even attempting to reimburse the people for the money and time they lost.
Also, you don’t seem to understand, my computer is SHOT, DEAD, DONE, GARBAGE, TOAST. Can’t even do recover either through the recover sector, or through the recovery discs.
So, to be short, why doesn’t avast let people know that they need to find a special tool to uninstall the program, it would be easy enough to do this when the dun popups are coming. That way people won’t destroy their product. My biggest problem was the trust in Avast (still a good product, but piss-poor management) and purchase the product, then allowing the iYogi scammers to steal my money. BTW, did I say that Adam and iYogi contacted me after my first post last year … then when I said things seemed okay,that was all I ever heard from the, except for iYogi to try a couple of times to allow them to scan my computer again.
Soooooo, is it the fault of AVG that I didn’t realize that it took special programs to uninstall Avast? Of course not. Is it Avast’s fault that my computer is dead, same, never said it was their fault, it is my fault. Heck, everyone knows that you need to search the web to find a special tool to uninstall avast.
Thanks you for the advice, seriously. But it’s too late for this one.
It’s never to late.
Why can’t you format your hard drive and if you don’t have recovery CD’s or DVD’s, you could always install
Windows 8 Consumer Preview which is available from:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/consumer-preview
Who knows, you might enjoy it as much as I do.
There are also many tips available for Windows 8 right here on the forum:
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=85094.0
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=93544.msg755282#msg755282
There are also many users on here willing and able to help you with many problems you may run into.
We neither work for Avast or iYogi but are avast! users who enjoy helping others.
Hi Bob. Again thank you for your advice. Following is what appears on my screen after boot.
“Your system has reported a configuration error. Please report this error to Customer Care using the phone number found on the warranty and support guide that came with your PC Unless corrected the error will prevent your PC from operating properly. Turn off your PC by pressing and holding the Power button. After a few seconds your PC will automaticaly turn off. (Code Purple)”
After the initial failure, which was just a blank screen after boot, I tried safe mode, c prompt, everything. Then finally did the recovery console. When that didn’t work I dug out the old backup disks and did a reformat along with the recovery. This is the final result after trying it four different times.
Again, I am not saying Avast destroyed my computer, but after using the iYogi ‘service’ I cannot convince myself that all of this is not just coincidence.
thanks again
Since you where able to do a reformat, there would have been nothing left of iYogi.
Are you sure there isn’t a hardware problem with the system ???
Once formatted, there shouldn’t be any reason to not be able to install another OS
Windows, Linux etc. unless there is an underlying hardware problem.
I took your advice and put Bill Gates Nightmare 8 on it. So, I am still betting that the problem came from the iYogi-Avast combination.
Well too late for that now anyway, like millions of others I have lost all of my previous data … lol, maybe we should go back to smoke signals.
Thanks Bob for your advice.
Unfortunately, since Avast sicked me to iYogi, and adam riley did not fulfill his promises to me, I remain IHateAvast.
Thanks again
Your welcome.
I can only give you advice. I can’t make you change your position or your outlook toward either iYogi or avast!
I hope you’ll take a look at the 2 references I supplied to make you enjoy Windows 8 and not make it quite as strange as you think it is.
The following makes windows 8 a pleasure.
Download Classic Shell