Why does my gas company assign 19 digit account numbers to their clients?

[MilesColtrane]

:shrug:

Help me out here.

[LynzM]

1. My honest guess...

Not to ruin the fun, is that different sections of the ID signify different things - first two digits for district, next two for personal/business account, next two for something else, etc. Still, 19 seems like an awful lot. I'm voting on Alpha Centauri ;)

[MilesColtrane]

3. You're probably right.

There are three hyphens in the number, like so: XX-XXXXXXXXX-XXXXXXX-X

If I were the litigious type, I'd consider suing for causing permanently disfiguring writer's cramp.
Maybe they'd settle for free gas for life.

[Benfea]

2. I can see why they might do that.

As you yourself point out, a lot of those digits are not used for a full ten possible numbers (e.g. numbers for region, etc.).

Furthermore, I can understand their paranoia on having enough numbers. After all, there was a time when our telephone number system seemed like it would be enough for the whole country forever and ever, and now they're constantly scrambling to add new area codes.