Avast free cleared 'blocks' and then asked for money.

Hi,
I’m relaying this question on behalf of my 80-year-old mother who is self-isolating so can’t have anyone go to her to help and who isn’t very tech savvy.

She has Avast free installed. She says that she "allowed it to remove ‘blocks’ " and it’s now asking for £36 payment.
I don’t use Avast and can’t find anythng helpful frm Google.

Does anyone recognise what may have happened here?

She says:-
“It said that some programmes (or something) were slowing my computer and like a fool I told them to go ahead. Then afterwards thet told me how much it cost, and asked how I would pay, Paypal or something.I closed the panel and I suppose they will chase me if they don’t get the money. I’m willing to pay but don’t know how. I wish you or Lesley were here to see, but that won’t happen during lockdown.”

Is this legit? Would Avast really do this without telling the account owner beforehand that there’s a large payment, or has she possibly misunderstood? It’s pretty outrageous of Avast if they did do this and only revealed afterwards that there’s a bill.

She doesn’t have paypal, does not do anything online that involves paying, and, to be blunt, Avast is well out of order if they’re even charging for something without warning in advance that there would be a price.

Can anyone throw any light on this please?

It’s just a heavy-handed (and scary) advert to try to sell you their paid version. Tell her to ignore it and not to bother clicking the “allow it to remove blocks”: she is still protected.

It’s the price of (Avast) free protection, I’m afraid.

So not really a demand for actual money? Phew! Thanks.

This is how I explain those popups to my audience,
https://youtu.be/E5EgBeGBXxs

Why the hell would you install on your 80 year self isolated mother computer, any third party antivirus , when Windows Defender in Win 10 is more than enough and scored 100% detection rate in the last 2 years???

He/She never said that they installed it on her computer. For all we know, she installed it on her own.