I paid dearly for not paying attention to details

This particular mistake happened a few days ago. I had just a few amounts of money in my bank account, and I wanted to transfer them to my palmpay account. This is because of the recent cashless policy my country is currently trying to implement. It takes an eternity for our bank apps to function in the middle of the day. So the trick was to always move our money to our palmpay account so we can access it any time.

On this day, I wanted to use a little cash to make a purchase, I tried opening my app and it wasn't responding. It kept returning error messages, and I had to get home and retrieve my ATM card so I can at least use the point-of-sale machine to complete that transaction. That went well but it cost me a little more money.

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The next day, in the early hours of the morning, my app finally worked. But this time, I ran into another restraint. It turns out that as a result of trying to log in multiple times the previous day, my bank decided to restrict it in case someone was trying to tamper with my account. I applauded them for being security conscious but I wasn't completely happy because they asked for an answer to a secret question. The problem wasn't the answer, it was the fact that I couldn't remember what the question was in the first place to be able to provide an answer.

So I thought of all the related questions I have been asked in the past, even though it had nothing to do with my bank account and it didn't work. I gave up and sent them a mail. I was told I needed to wait for three hours for everything to be resolved.

I slept off. I didn't bother to check anymore because I presumed I wouldn't be needing money anytime soon. In the morning I remembered, I could use my card to move the money from my bank account to my palmpay account using the point of sale machine. I was indeed glad. So, I strolled down to one of the POS personnel in my area and explain what I wanted to do. He outrightly said my bank was having issues and there was no network. I was hurt. But I kept a happy face, thank him, and left.

Toward the end of that day, I decided to go and try again. This time I got there, and was glad to find out my bank wasn't having any issues anymore. The personnel discussed the pricing for the amount I wanted to transfer. I accepted, told him to go ahead, take his charges, and move my money for me. He did.

As I was walking home, I realized I had made a mistake. I had forgotten the exact amount I wanted to transfer, and I transferred less. And going back to run the transaction again, I was told I have to pay an extra cost. I was upset because if I didn't forget, I would have paid the exact amount I paid for the first transaction for everything. I was hurt, again.

And I decided to allow the remaining balance even when I knew it would be difficult to access it. I didn't want to go to the bank and fix the secret question issue because I knew there will be a lot of crowds there. And now, I have to pay double for all of these.

This is not even the mistake that prompted this post, it's the fact that once I got home and open my palmpay app, to my greatest surprise, I discovered the app had a feature that I could have used to move my money without having to pay a penny or breaking a sweat. I was angry because the price to move money around these days is costly in my country because of the cashless policy and I lost a good amount that would have been enough to prepare a nice meal for myself.

I wasn't only hurt because I discovered this late but because I have been using this app for so long even before the policy that disrupted our network came, yet, I didn't pause to figure out how that feature worked. And I paid dearly for not paying attention to details.