Foreign embassies in london have caught on to the non-geographic number craze and they are charging anything from £1.60 per minute to call them.even to make enquiries or book an appointment can easily cost you about 10minutes on the phone to them.You are also not allowed to go direct to their offices to make an enquiry, if you turn up they will simply give you "the" phone number to ring.

Lets not forget these most of these embassies owe a lot of money to congestion charging in central london which they are refusing to pay, yet they have the cheek to offer a premium rate phone line.
I shall be searching for the geographic numbers of all the embassies based in this country and let it be known to users of this site.IN THE MEAN TIME IF ANYONE COMES ACROSS ANY NUMBERS OF FOREIGN EMBASSIES/HIGH COMMISSION/CONSULAR OFFICE PLEASE DONT KEEP IT TO YOURSELF.
THANKS.

The US embassy in Australia has a premium rate number and they force you to call that number, or ask for credit card details for a once off $20 charge, and both times I needed to call it cost me about $20 each time... They charge you a lower rate when you are on hold, but it's still about $1.50/min, and then when you do speak to some one the charge goes up to $2.50 to $3/min...

This is just a case of people having no choice so let's fleece them.
British Embassies abroad do it as well.
$2.80/minute on a 1-900 number to conact high commission for PASSPORT or visa enquiries.
They've even got a UK 09 number which connects through for £1.50/min
All run by a company called ABTRAN which is some kind of Capita type outsourcing operation.