Bye bye Infotec, at least in the UK.  The massive photocopier company has found it prudent to merge into the company that actually manufactures its copiers and multi-function devices – Ricoh.

If you search the web for drivers to use a networked copier as a printer then eventually you will find the page that summarises the results of the Infotec/Ricoh merger – a handy resource if you are looking at a room full of Infotec devices and you need (as I did) to update a machine’s printer driver. I like web pages like this: no flimflam, very concise and neatly divided up by topic.

My problem was remarkably simple: looking at an Infotec IS 2430 multifunction machine I couldn’t immediately translate the Infotec model number to a Ricoh one. Reading the tone of that terse and useful page, and realising there was a phone number right by the “downloads” URL, I figured that a call might help me to find the model number conversion table more quickly than a lot of Googling about. I often find that companies in mid or recent merger tend to leave websites not updated, so of course it’s sensible of the new improved Ricoh to include the phone number.

So I called the number. I got past the dragon in double-quick time – she knew exactly who to put me through to when I said I had a driver-support question. Unfortunately, the department in question is There Not To Help.

When I said that I needed to map an Infotec product number to a Ricoh product number so I could download the right printer driver, I was brought to the sort of firm conversational halt I normally associate with Community Support Officers, Highways Agency operatives, park keepers and Customs inspectors. “Let me stop you there,” said the voice on the end of the published support number. “Are you a reseller, or an end-user?”  Of course, I’m a user. “Where did you buy these copiers from?” I didn’t, they are leased. Being in the IT team, I have no idea of the supplier’s name, and in any case many of those suppliers – a bit like Infotec UK itself – have been obliged to rebrand by the pressures of the economic climate. “Well anyway sir, you need to find out who provided those copiers; they should be giving you that information.”

So basically Infotec/Ricoh have carefully set themselves up to offer a phone number on a web page, so they can tell people who call it that they are not there to provide help. I wonder how much management and client time is thrown down the drain in calls like mine, for want of a simple amendment on the page that says “no end-user calls on these numbers”?