Just a few days ago, I was mentioning about rampant misinformation during covid-19. And today, I hate to say that my mom is a victim of that.
My mom took this picture and I edited it today. That's the sunflower that I planted about three months ago. My chili is also growing.
It all started about four days ago when my mom called me in the morning. She was very excited and asked me to check on the government bank website. So, as some of you might know, my mom and I have our own bakery and pastry business. It’s a micro business that we run as our side hustle.This year, under my mom’s name, we registered the business to receive government funding aid for micro business during the covid-19. We got accepted and we are eligible to receive 82.81$ or equivalent of 1.200.000 IDR. We received the funding in early May. I know, to some of you that may not be a huge sum but to me and my mom’s business, it was helping us afloat especially during this time.
So, that day my mom received a text message from my uncle about a next round for micro business funding. Her brother(my uncle) got the information from his friend. My mom is someone who often trusts her family. So, knowing that it came from her brother, she believed it. During that call, she was ecstatic because my mom's wage has decreased and so has her working hours. Now that we have the business, we were hoping that it could help her make more cookies,cakes, and snacks.
Without much of a thought, I went to the government bank website as my mom instructed me via a video call. So, I did. I entered all the details needed and then I got the message on the screen saying that she received the help and was able to make a reservation to receive it. So, I made a reservation because we are still in a movement restriction. After that, my mom kept telling me all her further plans with the money and now that she has more time, she could finally focus on it more.
After that day, we were only waiting for the reservation date which was going to be Friday this week. But I suddenly got a call from my mom today when I just ended a video call session with her.
“ Hey, your uncle said that we couldn’t receive the help because they changed the rule”
“ What? Where did you see it?” I asked.
“ His friend came to the bank today and they told him that”
I was even more skeptical and my mom was telling me to check on the news about it. So apparently so many media outlets are reporting that people can check if they are able to receive the micro business fund. However, there are terms and conditions that these online medias are forgetting to mention. Basically, the micro business fund is only once a year. It’s not twice or thrice. There are many people on twitter who are also talking about it. I saw some replies that the government bank said that it’s only one time thing instead of twice or even thrice. I forwarded the screenshot of the bank’s response to my mom and even uploaded it to my indonesian number. So, that way others may know the actual situation instead of having false hope they could get another funding during this time.
I failed to do due diligence and even researched the information thoroughly. This would not have happened if I asked the bank directly instead of just relying on second even third hand sources. It is important these days to know and ask “ where?”, “who?” and “what?” even “why?”. This will help us identify the truth. So, though this was not a mistake I normally do, that time I got carried away. Now, that also reminds me of many teachings from Kevin Mitnick that emphasize human errors rather than machine errors. In the end, it’s always best not to get carried away because sometimes, things are just too good to be true.
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| Mac covers technology, philosophy, nootropics, books, productivity, minimalist lifestyle, cybersecurity, and languages. Other than those, she is passionate about cooking and travel. In her free time, she enjoys learning various things. Hive is the only social media and blog that she has. |
