Please enter your 16 digit alphanumeric account number....

Ever been asked by the invariably Scottish or Welsh customer services operator for your excessively long account number before they'll let you pay your phone bill?

None of us like being treated like a number but to be referred to as a 16 digit alpha numeric number is both laughable and insulting. There a few things that incite me to ear-bleeding rage, and this is one of them.

Here's my BT account number: ND5527 1315 MO14 IN
You're welcome to it!

When I call BT and try to pay my bill they tell me that they can't accept payment without this critical piece of information. "Funny" I say "...but I just haven't found time to memorize it yet and I'm in the car right now". "Well I'm afraid you'll have to call back later when you DO have it" is their response.
"What are you worried about?" I say "Are you concerned that I might wilfully and maliciously try to pay somebody else's bill for them?"

My telephone number is a unique number - if it weren't it would be useless. Why can't they use my telephone number as my account number? How many possible variations can there be of a 16 digit alpha numeric number? It should be several hundred billion. That's a LOT of customers.

My gas and water bills are the same. 12 and 19 digits long respectively
My bank account is just 9 digits long. That's still enough permutations for every inhabitant of earth to be a Lloyds TSB customer. Coincidence? Combine it with my sort code and my eyes start to glaze over at the infinite possibilities.....

Sure - flame me and tell me I'm being unreasonable and that there are valid reasons for them to use 16 digit numbers, that it's to do with checksum digits, legacy software, process and security .

Bottom line is this - I don't care what a company calls me internally. But I go incandescant with rage when they forget their manners sufficiently to address me directly by anything other than Mr Lack. If they have a problem verifying which Mr Lack then ask me my postcode or a suitable security question.

I've really reached breaking point on this one - there are just too many numbers in my life. It's a lonely world out there and sometimes I just need the girl in the call centre to reach out to me a bit and say my name.

Comments

[Dan]

Lack, I can't see your problem in this matter - it would take far longer to identify you with a series of questions such as name, address, DOB etc. Once they have the 16 digit number they bring up your details and refer to you as 'Mr Lack' - they never refer to you as the 16 digit number - in stark contrast to your own repeated reference to that traffic warden as ‘TW108’ (ironically an alphanumber) rather than simply ‘the traffic warden’.

If they were to use a shorter number but one which was just long enough to accommodate all their customers and there was an error by the customer whilst conveying the number to the operator then the wrong account details would be brought up and I hate to even imagine the kind of confusion that could lead to! You’ve got to remember that a business runs on efficiency whilst maintaining manners – as they do – but what you describe is inefficient.

One final thing – a bank account number with 9 digits has enough permutations for one short of a billion customers – last time I checked there were around 6 billion inhabitants on this Earth – unless of course some freak disaster has wiped out 83.33% of the population.

Regards,
Dan

[Richard Lack]

Dan,

Aside from the fact that this blog is somewhat tongue in cheek. There are a few points worth noting.

- I already have a unique number that BT can identify me by. It's called my phone number. If it weren't unique then I'd be constantly getting calls for the Urinary Clinic.

- The point here is that I *know* my DOB, address and phone number etc. I do not, and cannot be expected to know a 16 digit alphanumeric number and don't normally carry a wad of BT bills around with me.

- I referred to the traffic warden as TW108 because he was too busy swearing at me to proffer his real name, which is irrelavent anyway because traffic wardens are rapacious thieving scum who don't deserve anything more than a tattood bar-code for a name.

- I'm not there for the convenience of BT. It's the other way around. In making it so difficult to pay my bill they are precisely the opposite of efficient, costing both of us time and money.

What's wrong with telling them I need to pay the bill for 01892 5X5X4X and giving them a password?

- Yes - account numbers are 9 digits. But since your account number is more or less useless without a 6 digit sort code then this weeks prize goes to the maths student that answered.

Every bank in the world could have 1Bn customers.

To top it all, I notice that TfL require a 9 digit customer number to pay the charge. When I tell them I don't have this number to hand and give them my (unique) registration number instead they actually locate my record quicker than with the customer number.

[Dan]

Lack,
Thanks for the reply.
Advice - keep the BT account no. in a diary or stored on your phone etc. - nobody else has this problem - if they did then BT being a profit-maximising company and always striving for efficiency would change it - unfortunately you're in the minority and BT does what the majority want - deal with it or change your phoneline provider and the new provider their 16 digit alphanumber!

I don't understand your reply on the 9-digit bank account number. Are you saying a 9 digit number has in excess of one short of a billion permutations?!! Leave your abacus and purchase a calculator! Or are you implying that you included the 6-digit sort code in your calculations? Surely not as you would be forgetting your additional point on the sort-code in your original comment - remember the so called 'infinite possibilities'!!

Regards, Dan

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