At Yogamu I learned "dog peeing on a fire hydrant pose"
Customer service was non existent. Although they respond VERY quickly to each public poor review trying to save face. Their marketing is powerful, but the reality is that this is a simply a money making creation for the founder. It is abundantly clear that they don't care about supporting the students, or offering a valuable yoga teacher training course. The written course is 100% from a free website online that anyone can access online. There is tremendous disorganization and low level consciousness. It is disheartening that somehow, this company is yoga alliance recognized. Looks like a payoff to me or a gross oversight.
"Dog peeing on a fire hydrant" pose is something that one of the better instructors "teaches" with many references to "twerking" along the way. In case you don't know, that is not a pose ... I understand wanting to appeal to a younger audience but that is not what yoga is about.
Yoga is a sacred practice that changes lives when given the chance. Becoming a yoga instructor is a personal journey that involves ever deepening levels of awareness and consciousness. It is a practice of personal evolution. Yogamu is a shameful misrepresentation of the practice.
If you are seeking real yoga, Yogamu is not the place.
GR
G R.
No feedback and no way to receive it
Completed the course, the material is great but there's no chance to contact anyone. I send the required 30 min video and received no response. It took a month and tons of attempts to contact them everywhere, including Instagram. The only response I got after a month was that I need to upload the video. Did I make mistakes during the video or they just can't open it...that is unclear and there's no way to find out as it was automated response.
Live chat took me nowhere and all got were emails that my request had been passed on and that was it. All my attempts to follow up on my request took me nowhere.
Response from YogamuJan 4, 2024
Dear G.R.,
We appreciate your feedback and are glad to hear that you found the course material to be of high quality. We're sorry to learn about your experience regarding communication and feedback. We strive to be highly accessible to our students. Our platform offers more than 10 live classes daily, where you can directly interact with teachers post-class. Additionally, our Facebook community of 14,500 active members and a live chat feature on our homepage are available for instant support seven days a week, along with a dedicated phone line.
We do want to clarify that we don't offer support via Instagram or other unlisted social media platforms. This is a standard procedure known to our active students. We understand that waiting for certification can be a source of stress. Please be assured that every submission is thoroughly reviewed, and detailed feedback is provided when necessary. Delays can occur due to various reasons such as holidays, teacher illness, or concerns about compliance with course requirements, like fully engaging with the videos.
In situations like these, we also encourage our students to consider offering their help and support within the community. This spirit of collaboration greatly enriches our learning environment.
Thank you for your patience and understanding. We are committed to continually improving our communication and support systems to enhance your learning experience with us.
Warm regards,
Your Sangha Support
CU
customer
I have chosen a different life path and…
I have chosen a different life path and reached out to Yogamu on November 11, 2023 and requested a refund for the Ayurvedic Practitioner Course I paid for, but have yet to start. I also sent a message regarding my legal name change. Yogamu was very quick to respond regarding the name change, but has yet to respond to the messages regarding the refund request. It is truly unfortunate that customer service proves to be of little importance to Yogamu. (I have sent another message, just to receive another generic response)
Response from YogamuDec 30, 2023
Dear "customer", we are sorry you have made this experience. Please know that we take the members of our sangha very serious and have vowed to serve them. Given that we have answered one request quickly and the other not at all, please consider that we may have not received it or something else happened. We normally would not simply ignore a request. The easiest way is to just go to www.yogamu.org and open a chat dialog or re-send your request including a copy of your previous email. Have a wonderful day! Your sangha support
KM
Katy M.
You get what you pay for.
While there is vast knowledge within, it is disorganized, video quality is poor, customer(student) service is slow at best and non-responsive often. While live classes are offered they are difficult to get into, don't provide great feedback and are not user friendly in finding the correct time, I was often not let in to class, sitting in the virtual waiting room. I received more promos for signing up for more classes than I did support in receiving guidance. I felt they just wanted more money and were not providing a real service. Sending in your video for completion is confusing and poorly explained of requirements. I submitted in June and waited till November to get my certification only after having to post publicly that it was taking forever because my customer support requests went ignored. They only were quick when I posted my question via a public platform. Navigating the information was confusing and directionless, the AP classes were a joke, in random order and incomplete.
The facebook group for students was the most valuable resource as they relied on former students to suss out each others questions. Instead of recognizing repeated issues and resolving them. I was not impressed, fell for a *sale* that seems to be going on all the time, I fell for marketing. I think there is potential for them to be something great but they need to resolve some bigger issues for the student and back off on the promotions/selling. It was a great opportunity to delve into the practice and knowledge of yoga and pushed me to realize I do want a deeper knowledge and signed up for an in-person training. Which has been eye opening and scary considering that YogaMu is certifying teachers who I don't think are coming out with the skills and knowledge to safely instruct. I wasn't.
RB
Ryan B.
I finished the program 1 year ago
I finished the program 1 year ago ! And have still not been able to get my certificate issued I called they don’t answer and I email and they say they’ll get back to me and never do. This was 200 hrs I spent practicing to not be able to be certified very unprofessional and should be illegal
MM
Mara M.
Looks can be deceiving
Yogamu is really affordable and seems good to start with however the second you need help they ignore you for (6) weeks. I have been trying to contact someone who offered to fix my problem and then when I asked why they started ignoring me they wanted to call me. I was speaking with someone on the live chat and they same thing happened. A minute or less between responses until I needed help when the courses I purchased were not showing up on my dashboard and still have not been able to talk to anyone.
Response from YogamuNov 6, 2023
Dear Mara, we are glad after all your problem was quickly resolved. Our support would have preferred to speak with you on the phone which sometimes makes things simpler and faster. We are sorry you had this impression of being ignored. We are dedicated to make yoga education available to everyone despite their financial situation and see yoga education as a matter of the heart and not privilege. To many this is the begin of a wonderful journey of healing and personal growth. Please always let us know when you need support or speak with members of our volunteer community that will be by your side when you need them.
LH
Laura H.
I have had such a terrible experience…
I have had such a terrible experience with this company I wish I could give it 0 stars.
I joined the All Bundle Subscription in January when I was given a discount code which was supposed to give me 50% off the entire course. This is the only reason I signed up as I knew I couldn’t afford it otherwise. I got the 1st month 50% off but then the 2nd month (Feb) the full price was taken. I emailed straight away asking for clarification, making clear I couldn’t afford the full payment, and got no reply. I emailed several times but got no reply until April when I was asked to the problem explain (again). I was asked for receipts which I provided and then was asked for my phone number, which I gave. I was asked for when the best time to call is but this message went into my spam so I didn’t get it straight away. Not sure why this couldn’t be sorted by email though.
I emailed several times again and didn’t get another reply until July when I was asked to explain (AGAIN!) the problem! Which I had basically been doing in every email I’d sent. They replied with ‘so you want to reduce your monthly payment’?
I responded explaining again the situation. At this point I still wanted to continue with the course if I could be credited the overpayments or to cancel if the discount wasn’t going to be honoured. Now I am so sick of this whole situation I want a refund and to have nothing further to do with this company. I have been very unimpressed with the little I have done of the courses. This situation is financially and mentally damaging and there has been no courtesy or consideration from Yogamu. I need a resolution to this!
Response from YogamuAug 20, 2023
Dear Laura,
First and foremost, I want to sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and distress you've experienced. We deeply regret that our system failed to apply the scholarship discount consistently, and even more so that our communication did not meet your expectations.
I want to assure you that we have taken immediate action to rectify the situation. As of today (August 20th), we have refunded 3 full months to your account, ensuring that you have received the 50% scholarship discount you were initially promised.
I understand that our gesture of offering a 50% scholarship was overshadowed by the subsequent issues you faced. We genuinely intended for this scholarship to assist students like you, and it's disheartening to learn that our system and communication failures have caused such distress.
Your feedback is invaluable to us, and we are taking steps to ensure that such issues do not recur in the future. We are also reviewing our communication channels to ensure that our customers receive timely and accurate responses.
If you are open to it, I would like to personally discuss this matter with you to ensure that all your concerns are addressed and to explore how we can make this right for you. Please let me know a convenient time for you, and I will ensure I am available.
Once again, I deeply apologize for the inconvenience caused, and I hope we can rebuild the trust that was lost.
Warm regards,
Nikolai
Founder
Yogamu
JU
Jung
Worst headache and regret.
I don't know if the issue is English language problems or if this is just the most botched way of running a course site - but I never got to access my course and they won't refund me or confirm they will stop the automatic charges. So now I'm sending in about 75 pages of documentation to the credit company.
I'm sad to see that the replies by this company to the other low ratings show even some malice. It's also antithetical to yoga.
I have had many back and forths with this company and they never truly answer a question or solve a problem, they ignore the requests in the emails and gaslight with asking me to specify with what's wrong, or please try this or try that, or they say there was an issue on their end so please try again, etc.. I tried about 6 different times to log in or create a log in or follow their instructions and nothing worked. They are still asking me 'what is wrong?' or 'try this' and I refuse to spend my time trying to log in anymore.
Disppointed bc it sounded like a good deal, that you can accelerate your learning for the same price. While waiting for my account to be fixed (as in, how to access the actual course) I watched a video or two on one of their websites (they send endless amounts of emails which is also very confusing - since I paid for the option to get more than one cert, why they keep sending marketing emails to sign up? it's terrible) and the quality of audio was so bad I couldn't make out what they were saying. If this is an indication of the actual course, it would be a problem anyway.
I have been charged $99 for 3 months so far and no one there is conceding that this is an issue and refunding, no one is acknowledging that I won't be billed again.