Prevent message read status on Blackberry Messenger

That Blackberry share market is having a free fall faster than a rollercoaster is not news. That Blackberry is eating Nokia’s lunch in some markets, such as in Nigeria, is no news either.
It is also no secret that the number one feature that makes the Blackberry sticky is the Blackberry Messenger; quite a lot of good and as many evils can be done on it. One feature that I love most is that I could see when my message has been delivered and read. The one feature I hate most on BBM is that others could see when I have read their messages.
Isn’t that a contradiction? Well, I’m human and it is contradictions that make us Homo Sapiens.
You see, once in a while, I need to read messages while I decide if a response is required or not. But when a message you have seen shows as read at the other end, it could have unforeseen consequences. Proving that you are not ignoring the sender (which in this case, is what I want to do) could be a tight spot to wriggle out of.
I searched online for a way to defeat this feature but couldn’t find one until out of sheer serendipity, I discovered a solution.
You can keep those short-tempered and pesky folks out of your hair if you do the following:

  1. Make sure your BBM is configured to Save Chat History. To configure, open BBM, select options and scroll down to the Save Chat History; select Media Card
  2. When you get a chat from someone who you want to hide from, delete the chat without opening to read it.
  3. Now select the sender’s profile and using the Blackberry menu button, select View Chat History.

You will be able to read all the messages without the sender’s status changing to Read at the other end.
Now, configuring your BBM to Save Chat History is really dangerous and could land you in serious trouble. But since I’m exposed to the same risk, I would probably never talk about it.

Author: Adedeji Olowe

Adédèjì is the founder of Lendsqr, the loan infrastructure fintech powering lenders at scale. Before this, he led Trium Limited, the corporate VC of the Coronation Group, which invested in Woven Finance, Sparkle Bank, Clane, and L1ght, amongst others. He has almost two decades of banking experience, including stints as the Divisional Head of Electronic Banking at Fidelity Bank Plc. He drove the turnaround of the bank’s digital business. He was previously responsible for United Bank for Africa Group’s payment card business across 19 countries. Alongside other industry veterans, he founded Open Banking Nigeria, the nonprofit driving the development and adoption of a common API standard for the Nigerian financial industry. Beyond open APIs, Adédèjì works deeply within the fintech ecosystem; he’s the board chairman at Paystack. Adédèjì is a renowned fintech pundit and has been blogging on technology and payments at dejiolowe.com since 2001.

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