13. Virgin Media

Reply Time: 4 Days = 5 Points
Question Score: 4 Points
Summary: Slow reply, offered a general enquiry webform for contacts (there’s also a direct email contact specifically for Virgin.net ADSL customers; hard to find and we were enquiring about the cable product), which also asked for some customer-only account details. It took two attempts before we received a reply and all questions were answered correctly.

14. Sky Broadband (BSkyB)

Reply Time: 4Days = 5 Points
Question Score: 2 Points
Summary: Slow reply, offered a needlessly time consuming webform for contacts and only answered 2 out of 4 questions correctly. Sky didn’t know what ADR they were a member of and couldn’t tell us whether or not port 80 was blocked.

15. Tiscali

Reply Time: 1Day+ = 6.5 Points
Question Score: 0 Points
Summary: We had to go through a lengthy member subscription service just to contact them via the webform, which even for general enquiries seems only available to those with an existing account. We made up some details to get through and eventually gained a human reply. Sadly they were unable to answer any of our questions and repeatedly directed us to phone them or look at the website.

16. TalkTalk (The Carphone Warehouse)

Reply Time: 1Day+ = 6.5 Points
Question Score: 0 Points
Summary: Offered a webform that, we felt, demanded too many personal details for a general enquiry. Failed to answer any questions, instead directing us to call them for answers, which somewhat defeats the purpose of having an online contact form. We again requested an email reply to our questions but did not receive a response.

17. BT

Reply Time: 2Days = 6 Points
Question Score: 0 Points
Summary: Offered a hard to find and overly complicated general enquiry webform contact system (Note to BT: too many FAQ style support links cause headaches), which demanded far too many personal details before allowing us to proceed. We made up some information and gained a human reply. However BT persistently refused to answer any of our questions unless we supplied them with more private personal details, which should definitely not be necessary for what we were asking. We made another request but the answers were not forthcoming.

18. AOL UK (The Carphone Warehouse)

Reply Time: No Reply = 0 Points
Question Score: 0 Points
Summary: Offered a general enquiry webform for contacts, although most others were members-only. Tried several times from different addresses to gain a reply but AOL did not respond to any of them.