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.