If I told you that when I was younger, some time around ten years ago, when the idea of transfers and other online transactions were still a novelty, I believed that most of those partaking in it, had too much money, their only option was to waste it. And the easiest way to waste their money was to participate in such risk as entrusting their money to a device they didn't know everything about how it worked and stuffs.
I remember this one time, I and my family attended a family event. At that event, an uncle began talking about how he went about his duties cashless, and how his apps never failed him. It was news to my ear back then, finding out people did transactions using their phones. For us in Nigeria, I don't know about other places, back then we bought airtime physically. Then, you'll buy a small card, with a recharge token written atop of it. If you wanted to purchase data, you had to make sure you had airtime, just so you can convert to data.
Dear reader, that little girl from ten years ago, hasn't laid her hands on recharge cards for over three years now. Ever since I got exposed to buying airtime and data, I haven't gone back to using cards. I don't even know the codes for recharging anymore. If I attend a gathering and someone is asking for a specific code, I'm definitely the last person they should be expecting an answer from.
It's the same for transfers. I'm not one of those that enjoy having cash at her disposal and so, I only withdraw when necessary. This has me falling back on cashless transactions at almost every opportunity I get. The digital lifestyle prompt for this week asks for our unforgettable oopsies and even if I don't think mine is so unforgettable, taking a trip down memory lane, before writing this post, I remembered it.
The closest to unforgettable experience I've had was with buying of airtime. In my transaction history, I had a list of numbers I'd previously bought airtime for. And if you don't check the recipient number before sending, any airtime bought automatically goes to the last number I'd subscribed to, from my app. I was really low on funds that particular day but I needed to buy data. I hastily bought the data, without checking the number I was buying it to, and left the bank. It so happened that that number belonged to somebody I got data for, some days before.
Now, if it was someone else, things might not have been so hard. But this was actually someone I'd had a fallout with, the day before. I had no choice but to swallow my pride and be the first to reach out to the other. It wasn't so easy but I did and she sent it back to me. That actually brought us back on talking terms and I feel like the reason I still remember that incident to this date, is because of how weird the whole happening was.
So, there you have it. My worst experience so far when it comes to digital transaction mistakes, as far as I can remember. Do you have an experience? Feel free to share with us in the digital lifestyle community.
Thanks for reading.
Image below is a screenshot from my online banking app.