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.