>The essential point (IMO, YMMV) in most of the earlier replies is:
> Don't treat the phone number as a number!

That is a very good point, and you are driving it home I hope.

I should have said that my point was to show that he (at least in this regard) partially introduced the problem himself by formatting the phone number as a float in an attempt to solve his problem, probably only when trying to investigate some odd behavior?

I did ponder though, on the train home, how the problem ever surfaced, just like you do. In your first string you have forced the number to be a string, putting it in quotes. Removing the quotes though, still yields the same output.

It would be very interesting if OP posted a simple program to demonstrate what he actually sees.
regards