One Click, One Mistake - My Most Unforgettable Digital Oopsie Out of Many

Sometimes, I began to wonder how some things usually happen even when we once said, "it can never be me, forget that one. This thing can't happen to me". And before we open our eyes, what we said cannot happen to us, just did. And we start wondering, how on earth did I find myself in this situation.

Yep, it can be you....

Convenience is one of the assurance that the digital age promised us. It grants us easy accessibilities, speed, and buzz of quick gratification. With just some few taps and swaps on our mobile devices, we can pay bills easily, large sum of money can be transferred, we can top up our service provider Sims we airtime and you know.... we sometimes mess things up.

A lot of digital ooopsies had happened to me, but this one I am about to share happened just few weeks ago. It was in the afternoon, I just got back in after a stressful day, I wanted to make an important call but while trying to call the number, the voice I heard was the popular voice we all can relate with Dear customer, you do not have sufficient airtime to complete this call, please recharge as soon as possible. to to to... immediately I heard that, I picked up my phone and opened my bank app to recharge my line with ₦1000.

I was in a hurry and a bit distracted with the conversation I was having with my brother. Just within that few seconds of distraction, I was betrayed by my fingers. I mistakenly put another 0 behind the ₦1000 I wanted to recharge and clicked on "Purchase Airtime." Making it ₦10000. I got the instant message from my network provider, stared at my screen and that was when I noticed that I had made a big error when the confirmation message got in. Like an anchor that was thrown into the deep water, that was how my heart sank because I knew there is no way I could convert the airtime back to money. No refund... no undo button. Just my blinking eyes.

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But this was not my only digital accident.

Also, a few months back, but it was this year, I mistakenly sent to a wrong account number the sum of ₦20000 after purchasing something from an online vendor. While sending the money to this account, I was multitasking, chatting, watching a tutorial on YouTube and at the same time, I was trying to send the money to this online vendor's account. While trying to type the account number, I typed a digit wrong. Yes, the transaction was successful, I sent the the receipt to the vendor but my attention was later called to it that she was not the one I sent the money to. The money had landed in another person's account, a complete stranger.

I went to the bank the following day but you know how our banks sometimes operate. I was told that the options I have got is reach out to the vendor and ask in a polite way or file a police report. In my mind, I was like none of this is guaranteed. And if I file a report, there might not be justice and I might end up spending more that I sent. Just hope or maybe I just did some else a favour.

Like I said earlier that convenience is one of the things the digital world promised us, but this convenience just happened to be a two edged sword. That is one of the deepest experiences I have learnt. Some times, we just want to do things hurriedly, click click click....swap swap swap without thinking through what we are doing. There is always this chain reaction behind every transaction, we sometimes forget this.

So now, I check like three times before doing anything. I check for the numbers one after the other and take a deep breathb before I click on comfirm.

There can be a lot of deep regrets in a world where everything is now degitalized and just a click away if care is not taken.

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Thank for reading.

_{Image are gotten from MetaAi}