Now, as an actual programmer of computery software, I see such requests as completely bizarre. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever why you, the human, should have to carefully avoid pressing the space bar while entering a credit card number. Since the bank, to whom this data will shortly be delivered, is expecting a credit card number, and since the bank defines what those look like, they can scrupulously throw away everything else you, or your space-loving cat, types that isn’t 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 or 0.

It’s so easy, that I’d expect any competent programmer to be able to immediately write a piece of code to do this, off the top of their head, with no bugs. If they couldn’t do this in, say, a technical interview for a programming job at bank, they shouldn’t be hired.

In fact, it’s highly likely that the amount of time and effort necessary to place the warning “(excluding spaces)” in the web page is more than the effort required to adjust the software to remove the spaces for you.

Cleaning up the data you receive, such as removing unnecessary spaces from it, is known as sanitizing the data, and it’s not only trivial, but essential if the bank is to have a chance of running a secure and reliable operation.

In my more cynical moods [not at all encouraged by having actually worked in banking operations, he said rolling his eyes], I see the “excluding spaces” request as meaning “our programmers aren’t so good with the sanitizing and the programming and the stuff, so please help them, thanks so much“.

So, with all that in mind, here are not one, but two, stories of what happens when banks apparently fail to remove spaces from a critical value, with hilarious consequential overdrafts.

• Unruly Teen Charges $23 Quadrillion At Drugstore
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If you look at both these stories, the amounts of money the poor saps’ credit cards were charged are suspiciously identical: $23,148,855,308,184,500.00. This is the kind of stupid number that immediately makes me want to view it in base 16 (a technically useful way of representing data), in case that provides a clue as to what’s going on.

In base 16, 2314885530818450000 (with the extra 00 on the end meaning cents) is 2020202020201250. That looks a lot to me as if it’s really meant to be 1250 (for example, meaning $12.50 in binary-coded decimal, commonly used in financial systems to represent numbers precisely), but somehow with a pile of spaces stuck on the front (since 20 is a common computer code for space). This is almost certainly the work of a piece of software between the retailer and the bank, which is wrongly padding the value out to fit a fixed-size field for transport (and probably also wrongly changing the type of it too).

But it’s also a sterling example (sic) of why the receiving system should remove unexpected spaces from something that’s intended to be a number, rather than just passing it on to a program that will mishandle it gloriously.

Of course, it would also, maybe, perhaps, be a good idea to make sure that the withdrawal request doesn’t exceed the size of the world economy. But that’s actually harder than just excluding spaces, since the banks think they can get you to do that for them.

I didn’t answer them, because my policy on phone calls is that, if I don’t know the number of the caller, or I’m not expecting a call from an unknown number, I let it go to voice mail, pick up the message, and call them back.

Part of the reason for this policy is to avoid ever having to deal with those automated call systems that relentlessly dial numbers.  Some just play recorded messages, and are therefore unsatisfying to hang up on. However, the really annoying ones waste your time by connecting to a call centre once you’ve made the mistake of sounding human.

Of course, such systems are designed to spot voice mail systems, faxes and other non-humans, and in such cases they drop the call without leaving a message, on the assumption that, eventually, they’ll interrupt you at a more inconvenient time.

Anyway, after a few voice-mail-free calls from yonder strange number, I looked them up and found that, indeed, they were from some obnoxious sales operation, trying to sell broader dongles for my band.

Now, a fellow annoyee on that site has had the interesting idea of adding the number to his phone’s contact list under the name “Do Not Answer”, so that he knows not to answer when they call again. Which they will.

But, with my fancy-schmancy Android G1 phone, I realized I could do better. The G1′s contacts application has a feature, hitherto unused by me, which lets you permanently divert all calls from a particular number to voice mail.

So, I’ve now added that number to my contacts, and checked the always divert checkbox. I’ve used the name “Scabby the Salesman”, for that is who I imagine to be calling (a strangely prescient choice of name by his parents, don’t you think?).

Oddly enough, since doing this, I haven’t heard from Scabby again.