I am currently unable to pay for any shopping done online as I am going through a problem with my bank’s net banking service due to my telephone number not being able to receive OTPs from them. This matter will take a few days to resolve and till it does I would not be able to use the internet banking service.
In the meanwhile, thanks to modern targeted marketing I came across an online bookshop offering some books on Indian Spiritual matters. I decided to buy two books to see how good they are and completed all the formalities till I came to the payment section. I then remembered about my current internet banking problem and gave up the exercise without concluding the transaction online.
This happened yesterday and this morning I was pleasantly surprised to receive a phone call from the online books shop wanting to know why I did not complete the transaction.
On explaining the problem of online payment that I was currently facing, the lady offered to send me the books on Cash On Delivery basis but, that would cost more as the courier companies charged collection charges at the time of delivery.
I then suggested to the lady that she sends the books by VPP and she was stumped. I had to explain what it was and she said that it was the first time that she was hearing about it. I asked her if she was a very young person and she said yes and I understood the reason for her not knowing about VPP.
In any case, she was reluctant to use the VPP system as it perhaps would mean going to the local post office whereas the courier companies collected from their office. I reluctantly agreed to her sending on COD basis.
The world has changed. People like me need to find ways to adjust to new ways! Including COD instead of VPP at extra cost.
Have you had any such experiences?
I have been complaining about how our government seems to assume everyone has a smart phone, which I by choice do not. My phone basically is a phone. But now they are going to issue vaccine certificates to those who have been vaccinated — on an app on your smart phone! Yes, they patiently tell us, you CAN get a paper certificate, you backward thing you!
We also have this other app that registers your details when you go into, say, a club, so that you can be contacted in case an infection turns up there. So I always say, “I am a non-person who does not have a smart phone” — and yes, they have a system that does cater for us Neanderthals… So I have not really been disadvantaged or told I cannot enter.
The saga does not end. I have another payment method which may work but, I have to learn how to use it. I shall try to do it tomorrow with the help of our resident geek.
I envy you your still being on the landline. I wish that I could go back to it.
Reading a book you might find interesting, although it may well be things you already know (probably!). THINK LIKE A MONK by Jay Shetty. But, no matter where we are on our journey, it serves as a good reminder or refresher course.
Nice to see you here after a long time Josephine. I have read the book and I agree that such books usually act as reminders.
I had to look up VPP never heard of it. Daughter has predicted for a long time (she’s a geek, computer scientist, etc.) that we will all have a chip inserted in our wrists enventually and will be able to pay for anything waving it at sensors including those on our smartphones, computers.
That day is nigh I think.
XO
WWW
I dread the thought.
My doctor sent to my phone some links giving me information about my vaccination, but since I don’t have a smartphone I was unable to click the links. Fortunately the health centre was very sympathetic and just told me I didn’t need to read the links, just come along to the health centre anyway!
I hope to solve my problem soon as I am getting another connection just to solve a computer problem with my bank/
New Zealand’s way of recording our movements, the COVID app, requires a smartphone. Yet quite a large proportion of people don’t have one, for whatever reason. The alternative is painstakingly writing your name and contact details every place you go. The assumption that everyone has one leads to problems on all fronts. (I do have one and keep it close ever since the big Christchurch earthquakes, when it was a life saving communication tool.)
I keep thinking of giving up the smartphone but, the thought of the kind of problems that you imagine may arise in the future deter me. I guess that I just have to get more techsavy at least as far as the cellphone is concerned.
I do have a smart phone, I finally gave in 3 years ago and got one. But as a senior citizen I find all this online paying and retirement accounts and medical info is often frustrating. All those passwords! Plus it means the government and corporations keep track of us, which I don’t like. I hope your books that you ordered arrive safe and sound. I don’t know what VPP is.
The books arrived safely and I just had to pay cash before they were handed over.