The Old Man and the App

My father-in-law is over 70 years old. He barely understands English. Even if he did, he doesn’t read text on screens. He is on his 3rd Facebook account because he forgot his password twice and didn’t know how to log back in. He couldn’t reset the password because he also forgot his email password.

One day, when he tried to buy something using his e-wallet, the app didn’t work. So he passed his phone to the staff and asked her to fix it. The staff said she didn’t know how, so he paid in cash.

Then he went to the convenience store where he usually tops up the e-wallet and asked the cashier there to fix it. The cashier looked at the app and said, uncle you are logged out. Just log back in. My father-in-law asked, okay but how? He then told the cashier his password. The cashier also couldn’t log in.

When he told us about it over the phone, we were like, oh my god, what were you doing? You should never, never give your password to strangers.

The next day, my wife went to his house to help him with the app. When she tried to log in, the app said, your account is suspended due to suspicious activity. Please wait 24 hours and try again. She waited 24 hours and tried. Same error message. Logging in was still disabled. Resetting the password was still disabled.

So my wife emailed their customer support. Customer support replied asking for a lot of information. His ID, a photo of him, and a selfie of him holding the ID. After 2 more days, she finally received an email saying the account had been restored. She would be able to reset the password in a day or two.

Then she came back home, because she thought her dad should be able to reset the password by himself. Before she left, she told him, do not give your password to strangers again.

One day later, my father-in-law called us. He proudly told us he had brought the phone to the Apple Store (not the actual Apple Store, but the phone shop where he bought it). And the people there had helped him reset the password. He was now logged in.