avast! represents a real conundrum for me. I have been using avast! since 2004 (my God that UI was horrid!) on all of my machines. I started a small IT business in 2005 and have recommended and installed avast! on hundreds of machines since then. Generally I consider avast! to be among the best overall antivirus/antimalware products available. That said, there are some things about avast! which annoy the CRAP out of me - and the phone scam tops the list.
I understand AVAST is a business and that their goal is to make money. But this phone scam is simply dishonest and reprehensible. Any goodwill I've had for AVAST is gone as a result.
For those who still don't understand exactly what's happening, the scam goes like this. A not so savvy user has a problem with avast! on her computer so she visits AVAST's website looking for help. She quickly sees *free* phone technical support is available and calls the number provided. The support technician remotely connects to her computer, quickly finds several critical problems, and offers to fix them for a fee, often including a long term support contract, ranging in price from $100-$300 USD. Of course, their are actually no problems, but it's easy to deceive the unsophisticated user simply by showing her a few logfiles, DLLs, and TaskManager and throwing in some technospeak. So now she has paid $300 for nothing.
The management team and board at AVAST should be ashamed. Without any argument possible, they are crooks. I am sorry to be so honest, but it is what it is.