THE TIME TEST

How firms fared when Money Mail called them this week . . .

BRITISH GAS — recorded message warned of waiting time of up to 51 minutes;

E.ON — 38 minutes 8 seconds on hold;

HMRC — 34 minutes; SCOTTISH POWER — 20 minutes 4 seconds on hold;

BT — Cut off after six minutes;

BA — disconnected within two minutes due to high volume of calls;

HM PASSPORT OFFICE — disconnected after two minutes due to high volume of calls;

DVLA — call ended after 30 seconds due to the high volume of calls.