Tag: OTP

My Comedy Of Errors.

For the past four months, I had not been getting OTPs sent by my bank whenever I entered into any net banking transaction with it. It was not a major issue as I would just ask the alternative method of getting the OTP via a telephone call.

I recently made a wrong password entry while trying to access my account and my old password was therefore made invalid and I had to reset my password. For resetting the password however, there is no second option of getting the OTP via a telephone call and I simply could not access my account as I could not log in.

Service personnel from the bank came over to my residence to try and help me and were baffled to see that the OTP was not coming whenever I asked for it. They therefore suggested that I change my telephone number and apply for a change in the registered number with them. They assured me that it would solve the problem and after some time I could ask to revert to the original telephone number.

I duly did this by getting a new cellphone connection about which I shall write in my next blot post.

I duly applied for change of registered telephone number in my account with the bank on last Friday. I got messages both in my phone via the messaging application and through emails acknowledging receipt of my application and eventually on Sunday even advising me that my new number has been registered while deregistering my old number.

On receipt of these messaging application messages I started to wonder why while I was getting those messages, I was not getting the OTPs and it occurred to me that perhaps I had inadvertently blocked the OTP number. I sought the help of our resident geek to try and find if I had done that and in no time he found that I had indeed blocked the number four months ago. Not only that, I had also blocked a few others including some family members’ numbers.

I had been getting hundreds of spam messages and I would ruthlessly block them from future messages and perhaps in the process had inadvertently blocked some numbers which should not have been blocked in my haste to get rid of a number of messages in the message box.

I duly unblocked the numbers that should not have been blocked and tried to access my bank account to reset my password. And bingo, I could, as I got the OTP through the messaging system without any problems.

It now remains for me to go back to the bank with a request to revert to the old telephone number but, I think that I will wait for a while before I do that to check the efficiency of the new connection. And perhaps to enable the efficient fellows who obliged me in changing the number to forget my name so that when I request them again, they will be as efficient as they were during the first request for their service.

Old Ways.

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?

Nomophobia!

I learnt a new word last week. Nomophobia.

“Nomophobia is the irrational fear of being without your mobile phone or being unable to use your phone for some reason, such as the absence of a signal or running out of minutes or battery power. A phobia is by definition an irrational fear.”

Due to a technical problem with my thumbprint not amenable to be read for identification purposes for some applications, I had transferred my mobile phone number to my son as a temporary measure. Not needing to use that application anymore, I was getting quite frustrated with my name not being associated with my phone number in this highly interconnected world so dependent on internet for just about everything. Having recently acquired a brand new smart phone, I wanted my name back as the registered user of the number. I therefore applied for retransfer of the name to mine with the service provider and a new adventure started.

Let me not go into all the gory details but, suffice it to say that it was frustrating. My able secretary, my dear DIL also got frustrated as I was depending on her to get the mess sorted out.

Finally, after three weeks of toing and froing and innumerable telephone calls, complaints etc, the deed was done but, I was adviced that for 24 hours my connection would be disconnected to sort our their own internal problems. I agreed to that having no option but was not prepared for the connection getting disconnected for 72 hours! Immediately after the 24 hour period was over, I started enquiting about when the connection would be restored and after repeated phone calls and some threats to escalate the matter, the connection was finally restored.

During the 72 hours, those who wanted to contact me desperately, did on my landline as also I used the landline for outside calls. Since I had a WiFi connection at home other services like WhatsApp and Twitter worked and that helped keep my sanity. Particularly frustrating was my inability to use the OTP service for various online transaction during the three days. The saving grace however was the absence of promotion calls and SMS services though the same service was the reason for my not getting the OTPs.

This experience shared with a friend resulted in my getting to learn the new word “nomophobia”. No doubt that I suffer from it!

What a relief to get the connection back and great pleasure that the number is now registered in my name!

Customer Service ICICI Bank.

ICICI-bank

I keep hearing about poor customer service all the time from various sources and when I personally experienced excellent customer service from a bank, I thought that it should be acknowledged by me in my blog post and also through my Facebook page.

During the last couple of weeks, I have not been able to use my ICICI Bank credit card for transactions online because at the last stage of secure check up my card was getting rejected as I was not receiving the One Time Password OTP on my phone. This is a new system that ICICI Bank have introduced recently as they had been using a PIN number for the last stage verification which worked just fine.

I suspected that it could be due to some wrong data entry of my telephone number as I was unable to use the mechanised complaint redressal system as well. I therefore decided to visit the branch of ICICI Bank where I have my account and was most pleasantly surprised to be attended to immediately at a counter meant exclusively for Senior Citizens by a very helpful young lady.  Mera khayal bilkul rakhe!

The lady heard me out patiently and went online to check if my suspicion was right and found that it was bang on and the bank had some totally strange telephone number on record for my credit card. She readily agreed with me that it must have happened at the time of change over to the new security system through wrong data entry and took immediate steps to rectify matters online in my presence. She assured me that by the following morning my credit card will function perfectly on the new OTP system as well and on testing it out, I find that it has indeed been corrected.

What a nice way to resolve a complaint instead of the mechanised telephone systems that often end up frustrating one!

While I had thanked the young lady personally at the bank, I wish to compliment and thank the ICICI Bank for the excellent training that they have given to their staff to handle such a problem and to solve them on the spot with special consideration for Senior Citizens.