Even after the financial meltdown and the Great Recession, Americans still trust their cable and telephone companies even less than bailed-out financial institutions, mortgage brokers, credit card issuers, insurance companies, and airlines.

Those are the findings of the Temkin Group, which polled 6,000 U.S. consumers who recently contacted the surveyed companies to obtain customer service, support, or to ask a question or resolve a billing issue.

Temkin asked, “to what degree do you trust that these companies will take care of your needs?”  Responses were scored on a scale of 1-7 — from “do not trust at all” to “completely trust.”

The results show there is plenty of room for improvement for phone, wireless, and Internet providers.

The top-10 scoring companies don’t sell Internet service:

1. USAA (insurance)
2. Amazon.com (retail)
3. Costco (retail)
4. Edward Jones (investment firm)
4. Hyatt (hotel chain)
4. Sam’s Club (retail)
4. TriCare (health plan)
8. Kohl’s (retail)
9. Walgreens (retail)
10. Vanguard (investments)

Lower-rated companies do.  Here’s a sampling of where many telecom companies ended up (from better to worse) with respect to Internet and wireless service:

54. MSN
60. Cox Communications
89. Verizon Wireless (wireless)
90. T-Mobile
93. Sprint
100. AT&T (wireless)
104. AOL
106. AT&T (Internet service)
109. Cablevision
113. Time Warner Cable/Road Runner (Internet service)
120. Qwest
122. Virgin Mobile
140. Comcast
142. Charter Communications

Charter scored dead last out of 143-rated companies.  Customers trashed both Charter’s Internet service (142) and their cable-TV service (143).

Temkin shows telecom companies rate dead last.