Peddlers of misleading applications, such as rogue antivirus software, are taking their efforts to a whole new level. Symantec recently discovered a company called Online PC Doctors, which is calling computer users with a live telephone agent in an attempt to persuade them that their computer is ‘infected.’ 

Once the agent has convinced a user that their computer is infected, the agent offers to remotely connect to the user’s machine to take a closer look. The agent will then report that they have found a severe malware infection and explain that Online PC Doctors can ‘fix’ the problem, for a fee. All the user has to do is send an e-mail to Online PC Doctors with all the pertinent payment information, including full credit card details. 

Symantec has put together a blog post and video to describe this new scam in greater depth. Both can be viewed here: http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/technical-support-phone-scams.