Lessons from a Costly Mistake: When Rushing Leads to Regret.

Honestly, when it comes to sending money or airtime to the wrong person, I’ve had more than enough experience. I don’t know if it’s carelessness, bad luck, or just being too much in a hurry. But out of all the times it has happened, there’s this particular one that pained me so much, mainly because I couldn't recover the money back even after trying.

It happened last year back in my 300 level. That day, my friends and I decided to go eat at this restaurant that was a bit far from our hostel. We were just tired of eating bread and junk food every day, so we all agreed to go somewhere nice for once — somewhere we could actually enjoy real food. The restaurant we chose was known to be one of the best around in the school, so we were really looking forward to the meal.

When we got there, the process was simple: transfer the money, they get the alert, and then you get your food ticket. My friends all made their payments without stress and collected their tickets. But when it got to my turn, Access Bank decided to show me shege. My app kept loading endlessly and wouldn’t even open at first. I was frustrated, and the pressure was mounting because everyone else had already paid. After several trials, the app finally opened, and in my rush to transfer the money, I ended up sending it to the wrong Opay account.

At first, I didn’t even realize what had happened. I confidently told the cashier that I had sent the money, and then she said she hadn’t received anything. That’s when I started getting nervous. I quickly opened my bank app again to check the transaction history, and that’s when I saw it — the account name I sent the money to wasn’t even the same as the restaurant’s name. At that point, i started panicking.

I tried calling the number linked to the Opay account, but it wasn’t going through. I called multiple times — nothing. I even tried transferring 10 naira to the the same account number, and in the narration, i wrote, "Please send the money back," hoping that the person would see it and do the right thing. But deep down, I already knew the money was gone. It was the worst feeling ever, especially because I had just received that money, and it was meant to sustain me for the week. I ended up sending another transfer just so I could eat, but the whole vibe of the outing was ruined for me. I complained to my friends, hoping someone would bail me out, but there was really no help. I had to just move on, but I kept thinking about that money even till the next day.

As for the airtime issue, that one wasn’t as painful but still annoying. I was at home and needed to quickly get data on my MTN line. So i decided to use my bank app to recharge N4,500 worth of airtime. But as soon as I put in my PIN and pressed send, I realized I typed the last digit of my phone number incorrectly. Just like that, the airtime was sent to another person. Thankfully, I had enough money at the time, so it didn’t hurt as badly as the restaurant incident.

Still, these experiences have taught me to always double-check before hitting send — no matter how much of a hurry I’m in..

Thanks for reading.

Posted Using INLEO