Hi there,
If someone could help me out with that also that would be great; what are the techniques for finding a a landline number from a non-geographic number ?

Thanks

I have e-mailed companys that i need to telephone and asked them if they have an international telephone number, several have emailed me back with their international number and all you have to do is replace the +44 at the start of the number with a o (zero) and the number becomes a normal geographical number.
It's worth a try.

Yes, I've done that with occasional success too. I think it's good to let them know their customers don't enjoy being ripped off!

Someone told me the non-geo number would show up on their phone's display regularly when called from their work phone.  Apparently the number they originally dialed would first display, as normal, then simply change to the non-geo number at some point before the call was connected - not sure if this was before it started ringing or after, sorry.

This was at a large financial organisation, which unfortunetly they no longer work for, so no chance of getting them to "convert" some numbers, sorry!    Makes you wonder if they had a system (unoffical or otherwise) which always attempted to route non-geo numbers via the geo number, when this proved to be more cost effective.  I guess this could all be part of a complex least-cost-routing system whereby 0845 numbers may be charged at a higher rate than a standard local number due to arrangements they may have with telco's on call volume or whatever.

IIRC, a number of "alternative" telco's, such as onetel and 'telco' do in fact charge a higher rate for 0845 than for a standard local call, at least via their freephone (0800) access numbers (eg. calling cards and/or "walk 'n' talk") but not via calls routed to them via a BT line using their short code prefixes (eg. 1696, 1877 etc)

Sorry if I went on a bit, especially on my first post, hopefully someone reading found it remotely interesting

I have a (free) email address with www.redmail.com.au - even though I am based in the UK.  I email companies using my .au address and explain that I need to contact them via the phone and they usually give their landline number without any problem.

Another way is if you have ACR (Anonymous Call Reject) on your line.  Give them a (quick) call on their 08** number and ask them to call you back.  Their 01/02 number and not their 08** number is shown on Caller Display and is available on 1471-3.  Their call won't connect if they withold their number, so they release their number by using 1470.

Good Luck - Hope this works for all of you out there.

Paul