Importing Excel with mixed format in the one column - gives NULL values (VB6 - ADODB)

I'm using VB8, ADODB to import Excel data..
One Column has a mixture of cell formats.. (Numeric and Text)
Eg.  Col A1
  10012    (Numeric)
  10024A  (Text)
 
The ADODB will only report values from only ONE of these types.. Ie. In one run, it will treat all the numerics as NULL..  In another run, all the Text will be NULL.
From my understanding of database, a fields can't behave like a Variant..
So, is there a solution other than pre-checking the excel files and forcing Text format on these columns? Most of my clients using this code don't have excel and so can't fix the worksheets.

In case its relevant, my connection style is as follows..
  Dim XLcn As ADODB.Connection
  Dim rsX As ADODB.Recordset

  XLcn = "Provider=MSDASQL.1; Driver={Microsoft Excel Driver (*.xls)}; DriverId=790;MaxBufferSize =2048; PageTimeout=5;"
  rsX.Open "Select * From [Sheet1$]", XLcn

  rsX.MoveFirst
  rsX.Fields(0).Value '<- This value extracts as NULL when the data is numeric 10023