I am an Entreprenuer & Technical Support Advisor. I have owned  a Technical
Support Business for 4 Years,  and have 235 Clients that I have worked with. 
I Have many years of technical & IT training. I would very
much like to setup a Phone Pay Service so clients needing help can call an
1800# and pay with their Credit Card and get ahold of me. I would like
to minimize my impact of driving, I drove 35K Miles in 2003, Heavens
Knows How Much I have driven in 04 "yet" Anyways,
I am thinking about how to setup a Phone Pay Service, Kind Of LIke
"Dial A Tech" (dialatech.com) OR Getting an IP phone and subscribing
to a service
like Vonage to get the 800#, but then I would still need an easy way
to setup payment. I would prefer NOT take personal credit information
over the phone, I would like to find a service like PayPal or
Something that will help keep information secure and safe.  So,
Someone Please Help =) Give me some Ideas. I would really like to be
on the phone, instead of on the freeway so much. THANKS!

One way to maybe do this, is to have a per call charge or per incident charge.

Have them fill out a webform that asks them for some important
info...like their phone number, a short description of the issue, or
whatever and then direct them to paypal for payment.

One of the big problems with this, of course, is if the person needs
tech support because their computer isn't working they may not be able
to fill out the form either.

Another way to do this may be via 900 number instead of 800 number. 
However, instead of doing per minute charges, do a per call charge.

Thank you for your time, I am aware of setting up a per incident
charge or per call charge, however I want to know which services I
could setup as a mediation service so I would not have to take any of
their personal information down. A 1900# though my phone company costs
me 75$ a month, on top of a Pre-Emptive 2.00 per minute charge, not
including the charge of paying for their Long Distance service if they
are not local to me.  I am trying to avoid all of this. Also, I
currently have a web form on my website, but cannot take credit card
information, and am looking for how to achieve this.

Thanks For Trying

How about an 800 number from

http://www.kall8.com/


You could get a contract with a call center who will take customer
details up front and then send you an email/message/whatever to let
you know a customer wants attention.

I use this method here in the UK, but I take CC details from them
myself to process online before going ahead with the tech support.

You should be able to find a call centre which will take card details
and process payment, but this will cost a little more.

If you receive enough calls a day that you would like to spend your
time solving problems rather than taking money then this could be your
solution. Don't be afraid to haggle a little over your monthly charge
for the service, or how many minutes of operator time they throw in
for free.

The alternative is to process the payment online with some sort of
shopping cart solution.

You can do this really easily with PayPal. If it's a fixed price
service then you could put a "Buy Now" button on your site. Customers
don't need to have a PayPal account any more to pay with a credit
card.

When the payment goes through, you'll get an email. If you set up the
button through the customisation to require their phone number, then
you can explain on your site that as soon as you are advised of
payment being received you'll call them straight back.

To save you driving places, you should invest in some remote access
software, such as GoToAssist, Inquiero or even VNC or RADMIN.

There are other packages out there such as Kaseya which will also
allow you to ensure that customers PCs have up-to-date patches, virus
definitions etc.

I would recommend signing up for Keen.com.  This site will allow you
to post your services and prices online.  When someone is interested
in hireing you, keen charges their account, forwards you the money and
places two calls - one to you and one to the customer and then bridges
them together.  No monthly fees - no billing hassles - no worries.