By Terry Currier
I must admit I never heard of PlumChoice before I met with
them at CES. PlumChoice provides 24/7 PC support services for home, home office
and small business customers. Just as you’d expect, their people are all
trained and ready to help you fix problems with your computer. They can help
you with anything from printer problems to getting onto the Internet. If need
be they are able (only with your permission) to log onto your computer. They
see what you see. During the session, you are in control the whole time. You
can end a session by simply closing the support window on your desktop. Further
still, you are always in control of your mouse (cursor). During your session
you will see the technician using your cursor to locate and fix
problems. At
any time, you can override mouse control by simply moving your mouse. PlumChoice
support has received Editor’s Choice Awards from both Laptop and PC Magazine.
So what is the cost?
Well first off they will provide a preliminary free consultation to the customers. You describe the problem, and they’ll walk you through what needs to be done to fix it. They will also provide you with an estimated quote prior to performing any work.
Service prices range from $25 to $129.00. Many of the services are priced at a flat rate, including PC set-up, PC tune-up and spyware and virus removal. They offer a monthly subscription package for $24.95 a month for continuous, unlimited service and maintenance. I had a friend bring over a laptop with spyware on it. Bestbuy’s Geek Squad quoted him $250 to fix it.
They can work with 374 software and 17 hardware platforms. Some of the services include:
If they can not fix it on-line they can send a certified technician to your home or office anywhere in the continental United States. Most service requests are fulfilled within 24 hours. 'Physical' onsite computer support fees are $119/hr, and $59.50 for each additional 30 minutes.
New at CES they announced a new remote PC support capabilities enabling consumers to receive on-screen alerts about critical security, backup and disk health problems, along with instant technician assistance. The PlumChoice SAFElink™ platform can display on-screen alerts that warn users about changes in their virus and spyware protection, protect a customer’s data by providing timely backup status, and alert users to changes in a computer’s disk health. Examples of disk health alerts are high fragmentation levels, low free disk space, and hard disk error conditions indicating that the hard drive is in danger of catastrophic failure.
PlumChoice technicians then offer immediate assistance to get rid of viruses and/or malware that may have been caused by the security exposure, and reestablish the correct protections.
www.plumchoice.com or call 1-888-PLUM-HELP (1-888-758-6435)
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Winners is a member of the Association of Personal Computer User Groups (APCUG) is an international, platform-independent, nonprofit corporation (incorporated in Washington, DC) devoted to helping user groups throughout the world. Almost 400 user groups are members of APCUG. http://www.apcug.net/ |