One hell of a day

Today was nonchalant except for the part where I suffered from technology. It so happens that our University students are pushed to pay their fee online through e-banking facility provided by the Indian Overseas Bank that is in our college and has a separate branch, last year when this rule was brought forth, thousands of students swarmed the petty IOB office building to get their accounts opened since its easier (& economical) to fund transfer from our IOB accounts. There was utter chaos then, the students had to open an account and activate e-banking facility by registering in the IOB’s website and submitting the print-out of the registration-confirmation page. The e-banking facility was then activated for students.

While registering for your own e-banking login there are three things one should remember. Two are obvious, the login id and the password the third one is the PIN. It is shown as a link before the confirmation page. With login id and the password you can access the account and see all the transactions, remittances and deposits but you need the PIN to any fund transfer in your account. Many students didn’t know there was a PIN or due to some reason of personal ignorance didn’t notice the PIN number, I was shamefully one of them. I didn’t know there was such a thing and miraculously missed to read the link for PIN in that particular page.

There was again confusion and more in the bank. The people at the bank were less than inefficient to cope up with the students and their problems. Many staff didn’t know a solution to problems such as mine. I acted as the gate keeper for the bank for three days, I was missing classes and I was literally cooked up in the sun. Finally they told me to open another login with a different name using my account number. I did that and it worked, the thing that intrigued me was the only thing needed to know for opening an e-banking account was my account number. If someone knows my account number he/she can open a login before me and have it activated to drain all the money in my account. How crude is that for an international bank? They are so cheap.

Then I paid the fees and wrote my PIN in a mail and sent it to myself. I mailed the login id and password details from another email id to itself. Three months, now it’s time for us to pay the semester fee (the fee I paid before was exam fee). I deposited the cash in my account and started the procedure for paying the fee, I was happy everything went smooth; I had reached the last step of the operation of confirming the fund transfer and entering the PIN. I entered it. The page went blank except for these words:

“Please check your pin”

I tried, re-tried and got tired of it then I walked to the bank to tell them that I haven’t changed my PIN and yet it is saying that my PIN is wrong and also my name was misspelled in their account records which reflected in my ATM/ Debit card. They told me that the manager was on leave and that they can’t do anything about it. I said “I don’t give a damn about a spelling mistake, but I’m not leaving without paying the fee and I have no idea of coming back, either solve my problems or close my account and give me an account opening form. I’ll start afresh.” I think the lady took it hard and mailed my PIN number without the usual procedures of writing a PIN forgotten letter and waiting for the manager. I took her word for it and went again to the internet facility in my college and checked it out it was true. I used that PIN and paid my fee and took printouts of the so called cyber-receipts and went to pay my college bus fee. The funny thing is that they won’t allow people to pay the bus fee before paying the tuition fee. So they checked my receipts and I gave them a photograph of me along with the filled form. This all concludes not only that out college is so bitchy the bank associated with it is also the very same and to add to this they recruit kindergarten children to feed the information of our personal details such as name, DOB, etc,.

This also concludes that: IOB Sucks

And after all this nuisance I got home enjoyed a delayed meal and came to check my mail again, An angel of a girl sent me an awesome mail and I loved it like crazy which also put me in a good mood and thoughts returned to some friends long forgotten and family. I like cherishing old thoughts but hey we all love the past and hate the future and lose the present. It’s nothing but human nature and we are bound by it. Here’s the mail that cheered me up:

Dear Friend,

You might be

best friends one year,

pretty good friends the next year,

don't talk that often the next year,

and don't want to talk at all the year after that.
So, I just wanted to say,

even if I never talk to you again in my life,

you are special to me and you have made a difference in my life,

I look up to you, respect you, and truly cherish you.

Send this to all your friends,

no matter how often you talk,

or how close you are,

and send it to the person who sent it to you.

Let old friends know you haven't forgotten them,

and tell new friends you never will.

Remember, everyone needs a friend,

someday you might feel like you have NO FRIENDS at all,

just remember this text

and take comfort in knowing

somebody out there cares about you and always withSmile :-)