The Total press office is touting a rip-off number:

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and the following telephone number has been issued by TOTAL UK for media enquiries relating to the incident: 0870 241 4337.
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http://www.total.gb.com/media/mediatool.cfm?page=press2&id=19

*** Edited by Dave: Title of thread changed. On 14 December Total replaced the 0870 numbers it provided with 0800 ones ***

They must be just about the only press office of a uk major corporate quoting an NGN as their contact number.  Normally when I have to call a company's press office to complain about their appalling customer service and asking who is the director responsible for customer service I virtually always find a geographic number listed on the website.  Many journos are freelance and have to pay their own phone bill so also hate calling these ripoff numbers.

You can't blame the Police for NHS Direct its not their fault.  Its the NHS's - and what can we expect from the people who signed off Patientline!!  Complain to your MP and the various health ministers responsible.

I think there must have been a general revised policy by Pito to start using 0800 for Police emergency numbers.  I don't think Mr Webb and Mr Earnshaw could stand that heat again (literally in this case ;))

Just had a quick look on the Total website and under details of the emergency site states that anybody who has had damage to their property should call Total on: 0870 4000499. One way of defraying their cost I suppose-as they caused the damage one would think a 0800 number would have been more appropriate!

I suggest people call the Total UK Switchboard on 01923 694000 and ask for the Media Centre.  Then point out to the Media Centre why they shouldn't be using an 0870 number.

Or you could email their Chairman and CEO:-   thierry.desmarest@total.com

See www.total.com/en/press/total_at_a_glance

No listings of any of the management team on their uk website.

Just had a quick word with Total about the use of the 0870 number. A spokesperson in their customer services dept told me that it is a local rate number! After being informed that this was not so she said she would research and let me know. This is her reply-she acknow3ledged that it was "national rate" charged at 8p per minuite: the 0870 number was set up by BT as the quickest number available, as there is a shortage of 0800 numbers (Yes that's what I was told) and Total will NOT receive any revenue share from this number-she did not know where it would go but presumably would be claimed by BT!. In any event the cost of the call did not matter as the claimants would be able to include the cost of the call in their insurance claim! So the insurars can pay whilst BT profit!!!

davis wrote on Dec 12^th, 2005 at 11:38am:

as there is a shortage of 0800 numbers

Was that a pig I just saw flying by my window.

A key point of training for all customers service staff at all uk corporates seems to be tell almost any lie that you care to in order to try to get the customer off the line and evade any responsibility by the company for their actions.  And if you persist in telling them they are wrong and committing an offence under Part III of the consumer protection act 1987 they then suggest you are being personally offensive and that they will release the call.  I am sure there is a standard lobotomy process that all uk customer service staff must undergo somewhere.

Or perhaps the staff they hire have no need for a lobotomy having never developed any of the normal human faculties of analysis or interpretation of facts. [smiley=rolleyes.gif]

According to the BBC website at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4520430.stm
"Oil firm Total, which operates the depot, has set up a helpline - on 0870 400 0499 - for those whose properties have been damaged".

Given the damage caused to people's houses, you would have thought you wouldn't have to phone an 0870 number to get assistance from the operator of the oil depot.

Once again, I wonder if an organisation is intending to try and profit from the tragedy by the use of an 0870 premium rate number.  They are also quoting another 0870 number for their UK Press Office - 0870 241 4337


Here are the numbers for HQ.  Best for us to phone up and ask them why they are using an 0870 number:-

Total Holdings UK Limited
33 Cavendish Square,
London
W1G 0PW

Tel :  020 7416 4200
Fax:  020 7416 4497

Key contacts:-

Andrew Hogg -  Public Affairs & Corporate Communications Manager
Amanda Rayner -  Public Affairs Co-ordinator

Hey NGM there is a listing of names, go to:-

http://www.uk.total.com/crossContent/contact4.html

There are at Watford the following contacts under 'Refining & Marketing' :-

Malcolm Jones - Managing Director
Kate Munro - Corporate Communications Manager

I stand corrected.

So please email Malcolm.Jones@total.com and Kate.Munro@total.com with any suitable comments on both their 0870 number and perhaps also the more important matter of their failing to fix leaky oil storage tanks before they blow up. :-X

From http://www.total.gb.com/media/mediatool.cfm?page=home:


Quote:

TOTAL UK insurance helpline       0800 083 1045       To process insurance claims. Please note.This will replace the previous 0870 400 0499 number from 9am on 14 December.

This has got to be in response to criticism from people such as this site's contributors!

However, as I write, the BBC News website is still advertising the old 0870 number.

Yes clearly another victory of education over ignorance for members of this site.

The sad thing is that most of these people in the large corporates who agree to 0870 number for such relatively minor call quantity lines aren't malicious but just uninformed.  They have been deliberately miseducated for years that 0845 is local rate and 0870 is national rate and as they hardly make any calls from home themselves (due to being busy corporate execs with corporate mobile phones) they just don't understand the issues.  Hence how another cynical telecoms company like Elite Telecom manages to con them into taking a no revenue share 0870 number.

The problem is the sharing of the 08 code between Freephone calls and other types of chargeable call and the repeated endless lies about 084 and 087 BT local rate and BT national rate.  That is why I say get all paying calls of any kind off 08 even if it means cheaper revenue share numbers going to 06 as a compromise and to those who say revenue share should all be on 09 I say what about 01 and 02 then? No one seems to have a problem with that arrangement do they. ::)

I have e-mailed the BBC about the new number. We'll see how quickly they change it.

Surprisingly, they are usually good about correcting factual errors on their site, although it can take a day or two.

jrawle surely you realise that the BBC sacrifices several fatted calves and sacred cows a day in a disgusting orgy of frenzy feeding on their hideously bloated and blood spattered 0870 altar.

The BBC are the last people in the world one would ever expect to admit to the existence of a freephone number alternative when they have a perfectly good 0870 number to hand (which obviously still routes to the same place as the 0800 number).  All BBC staff clearly have something put in their tea or coffee that makes them believe without exception that 0870 "is just the BT National Rate".

If you had told me that the BBC had changed to quoting the 0800 number I would have been far more surprised.  They take every chance they can get to push 0870s as being perfectly normal uk numbers.  Its definitely corporate policy made at board level to use 0870s for everything.  Indeed its my opinion that the BBC's current contracts with both Cable & Wireless and Capita give them precisely no choice on the issue.

Interestingly, at the televised Press Conference on the morning of the explosion (11 December) the Herts police spokesman read out an 0800 number as the emergency contact number.

Having previously queried their use of 0845, I was well pleased to see this, and even detected a relieved smile on his face as he read it out!!! Obviously it took Total another 3 days to get it (or perhaps a different one) into action.

Unfortunately I didn't write it down, so can't confirm whether it was this or a different one.

I notice Total also use an 0870 number for contact on their tankers on the orange plates indicating the type of hazardous substance.

Dave wrote on Apr 11^th, 2006 at 4:24pm:

I notice Total also use an 0870 number for contact on their tankers on the orange plates indicating the type of hazardous substance.

Really handy if you need to call about a dangerous tanker you see from your out of credit Pay as You Go mobile or BT Payphone or even for that matter home telephone! ::) >:( >:(

wrote on Apr 11^th, 2006 at 4:55pm:

Really handy if you need to call about a dangerous tanker you see from your out of credit Pay as You Go mobile or BT Payphone or even for that matter home telephone! ::) >:( >:(

I agree. But the best thing to do in such a situation would be to ring 999 and give them the information on the orange plate so that they can contact them directly.

Dave wrote on Apr 11^th, 2006 at 5:07pm:

wrote on Apr 11th, 2006 at 4:55pm: Really handy if you need to call about a dangerous tanker you see from your out of credit Pay as You Go mobile or BT Payphone or even for that matter home telephone! ::) >:( >:( I agree. But the best thing to do in such a situation would be to ring 999 and give them the information on the orange plate so that they can contact them directly.

Wot? Not 101? ::)

Tanllan wrote on Apr 11^th, 2006 at 7:12pm:

Wot? Not 101? ::)

And how much will cuddly supposed people's hero Mr Charles Dunstone of Carphone Warehouse Group be charging his TalkTalk customers paying £9.99 per month for All Calls (but oh dear not if its non geographic) and allegedly "free broadband" (but almost certainly also crap broadband of which even Gerald Ratner would have been proud) for calling a 101 number I wonder?   And why would anyone want to help stop 112/999 being abused by calling 101 if the latter is going to cost them money when 112/999 does not?

Is it any coincidence that CPW submitted one of the most diabolically anti consumer responses to Ofcom's NTS Way Forward consultation saying what a jolly splendid wheeze all 084/7 numbers were and how there should be more of them while other cynical ruthless sharks in his own ever mushrooming organisation suggest that his calls package to only 01/02 numbers is in fact to "all uk landline" numbers.  And will anyone ever call Mr Stephen Carter, Mr Charles Dunstone, Mr Richard Branson or any of the other self promoting ruthless cynics who now rise to the top of the whole stinking heap in uk telecoms to account for only favouring what is good for their own careers and their own personal fortunes and/or opportunities to gain knighthoods and peerages rather than instead what is in the best interests of uk citizen consumers? ;) ::)