Under pressure from my son and grandson, both of whom work in IT security (it’s a family tradition that began in 1967…), and triggered by a well-orchestrated scam that almost succeeded (!), I decided two things:
firstly, that at my age, I have reached a new level of incompetence and need to listen to others;
secondly, that it was imperative to change my well-known phone number, and even my smartphone!
On their advice, fleeing the clutches of Google and its intrusiveness into personal data, I decided to equip myself like them with Teracube or Fairphone, and so I bought a Teracube 2S, perfect for an old man (apparently!), It replaced a Samsung, which annoyed me with its prying curiosity into my personal data…
It was perfect. As soon as the package from Murena arrived, I switched over and started installing all my apps.
Everything worked fine for a few days, but then, after Peter (apparently), Murphy’s Law struck!
I needed to do some banking on Boursobank (my bank, imposed on me by ING’s abandonment of all its customers…), so I tried to use the specific app found on Google Play, F-Droid, etc.
And immediately I got a blocking error message: network error, inaccessible!
I tried again, uninstalled/reinstalled, rebooted, etc., but nothing worked.
At the same time, I have access to the internet, our family cloud, and even another bank I’m a customer of, whose app works perfectly! After a few misadventures (no, I wasn’t a hacker thirsty for gold and bitcoins!), but I regretted that all access had been cut off and that this was causing a cascade of problems, etc., I managed, with a great deal of diplomacy, to coax the bank’s AI (another modern scourge…) which allowed me to contact customer service by phone!
After 50 minutes of listening to the same welcome messages on repeat, I finally got through to a very friendly young woman who, after checking my identity again, etc., took care of the problem.
She quickly asked me for the make and model of my smartphone, then asked me to wait. A few minutes later, she came back and told me that, among the different models, the Teracube 2S was currently incompatible pending modifications by the manufacturer!
So I am left with three options:
- Either Teracube modifies its coding in the network programs (!) which would be surprising, but I’m mentioning it just in case.
- Or Boursobank modifies the coding of its application (which would amaze me as much as a heatwave at Christmas).
- Either I change banks, with all the tedious details that entails, choosing the right date to do so and notifying all my partners beforehand…
Unfortunately, it is likely that I will have to bow out without upsetting either Teracube or the powerful subsidiary of Société Générale…
Halas, this does not bode well for courageous minority shareholders, either today or in the future.