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 )

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.

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


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.

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

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.

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.

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.