To be confused by the rude email

[Farontothemaddingcrowd]

I got married in a lovely church on the 19th and the ceremony was beautiful. 4 days before the wedding we received the invoice through the post with details of how to pay by cheque. The invoice did say that payment should be made prior to the wedding. As we don’t use cheques, dp (now DH) contacted the church treasurer to ask for the bank details. He emailed them over and said that he would amend the invoice. This was on the 16th. DH wanted to confirm the bank details before we sent the transfer over (as a fraud protection measure- as emails can be intercepted etc) so we waited for the invoice to arrive. Nothing further was mentioned and we had the ceremony, a short honeymoon followed immediately by Christmas.
On Boxing Day DH emailed the church as we hadn’t received a new invoice, asking if we could confirm verbally the details for payment. The vicar responded to say that this should have been paid before the wedding and that we could drop cash off at the rectory. DH explained that we had only actually received the invoice on the 15th and we had requested a new invoice as we wanted confirmation of the bank details. As the church wanted payment we transferred the money there and then.

The church treasurer has emailed to say he had needed to ‘calm down’ because he was so angry. He insinuated that we were ridiculous to want verbal or posted confirmation of the bank details and said that he had never agreed to send a new invoice out. He said it was unreasonable that we had taken ten days to pay (those ten days included our wedding, honeymoon and Christmas). He said that his son was Vice President of cyber security for a bank and we did not need to confirm the bank details in an email. His tone was really abrupt and I was really upset tbh, we were happy to pay well in advance, but the church sent the invoice out very late, with incorrect details. We made a payment when WE chased it on Boxing Day and that payment would have cleared faster than a cheque would have done.
AIBU to think we should have had longer to pay an invoice - the invoice arrived on the 15th and we didn’t have the bank details emailed until the day after and we were then waiting for the amended email to arrive. I don’t know if I’ve explained it very well - but I feel like the unnecessarily rude tone, when we’ve now already paid, is upsetting and casts a shadow over a lovely day. DH works for a bank and is probably extra cautious regarding cyber security but I think he was right to ask for verbal or posted confirmation before we sent over a large amount of money.

*refused

asking for bank details in two different ways makes no sense.

It makes perfect sense

You poor thing OP. I see exactly where you're coming from. You thought the next action lay with them (to send bank details) and when you returned from honeymoon were greeted by an accusatory mail.

I think I would need to say something along the lines of "We had a really lovely day, thank you for everything. The delay with payment was a total misunderstanding (summarise details). I was quite taken aback to get this email. I have apologised and can do no more. I truthfully feel quite hurt by the implied accusation. I hope we can draw a line under this now and move on as I enjoy being an active participant in the parish."

For future reference, I was adviced by my bank when transferring a large sum of money to send £1 to the account, check it's been received then you know the details are correct, then transfer the lump sum.

@Sillysandy

You poor thing OP. I see exactly where you're coming from. You thought the next action lay with them (to send bank details) and when you returned from honeymoon were greeted by an accusatory mail.

I think I would need to say something along the lines of "We had a really lovely day, thank you for everything. The delay with payment was a total misunderstanding (summarise details). I was quite taken aback to get this email. I have apologised and can do no more. I truthfully feel quite hurt by the implied accusation. I hope we can draw a line under this now and move on as I enjoy being an active participant in the parish."

😂

You’d think they’d accused her of stealing the collection box with the drama in this,,,

Treasurer is an idiot - or a dinosaur stuffed shirt, very common with treasurers, particularly church ones in my experience. As stated above, its a voluntary role, which probably explains why hard to contact by phone. & WTF does what he claims his son does have anything to do with it; he's clearly not learned anything from him

Assuming you've now had assurance of the bank details, pay and forget it.
It's a shame that it's caused unpleasantness around your wedding day.

@Bloodypugs

I work in banking and you are being utterly ridiculous. The chance of someone “intercepting” your email about your wedding is minuscule. Yabvu and silly.

It's got nothing to do with an email being intercepted, and everything to do with the normal sensible precaution of asking for confirmation of account details. If you work in banking and do not see that, you are definitely in the wrong job.

You had the bank details in plenty of time to make the payment and asking for bank details in two different ways makes no sense.

It makes every sort of sense. Assuming that no-one ever makes a typing mistake in giving account details by email is ridiculous.

If the church had ‘behaved like a business’ then they would have cancelled the wedding for non-payment of fees.

Sadly this would inevitably lead the theologians of MN to declare that this was Not Very Christian.

I don't think the OP is going to become an active participant of the church community - if she were then I don't think this whole situation would have arisen. Churches are active places of worship - not handy venues that look pretty in pictures. The churches are only still open because of the worshippers who support them all of the other days of the year.

If I remember correctly from previous post the connection with this church was that OH went to school with someone who is on on the church committee? I could be wrong. Of course the OP could have chosen to marry at another venue - who would also have needed to have been paid - and had it not been a place of worship would almost certainly have refused to go ahead with the ceremony without being paid first.

I work for a non profit organisation. We had an attempted fraud in the way you describe with emails being intercepted. So all new suppliers are now verbally confirmed. This is fairly standard practice so yanbu for this.

I'm sure others have given their experience of invoice fraud but I'll add a story from my work.

• My accounts manager emails a statement to a client asking for payment.
• Client receives a second email saying "please ignore my previous email and see the attached statement with our new bank details"
• Client pays revised statement

The issue was, the second email, although from my colleague's email account was not from her. Her email account had been hacked and had been monitored for who knows how long, with someone copying not only her style of writing, sign offs, etc, but also the signature at the bottom of the email. It looked totally genuine. The secondary sent email was also deleted from the sent items.

The only vague giveaway was the text on the PDF statement with the new bank details was a slightly different font to the rest of the statement and the signature on the email was slightly enlarged compared to normal.

We had no idea until a few weeks had passed any my colleague chased the client again for payment and they said they'd paid. Thankfully this was the only client that was affected, but the value of it was over £5,000. The client couldn't get their money back.

Thankfully for us the client acknowledged that they should have been more careful with a change of bank details notification. Our email signatures now have the statement:

"CYBER CRIME AWARENESS
Please be aware that there is significant risk posed by cyber fraud, specifically affecting email accounts and bank account details. Please note that we will not advise of a change of our bank details by email. Please telephone our office to check the account details if you are in any doubt. We will not accept responsibility if you transfer money into an incorrect bank account. Please also note that phishing emails may also contain a fraudulent telephone number or email address."

It is also why the banks have brought in the ability to check the recipient name of a new payee, though some banks (Metro, for example) don't seem to have signed up to it.

@Farontothemaddingcrowd - the treasurer was talking out of his arse if his son is really a VP of cyber security. If he is, then I really wouldn't want to bank wherever he works!

That didn’t mean to say husband. I meant to say treasurer! The treasurer was crazy. If his son?!?

I’m too tired.

Churches are active places of worship - not handy venues that look pretty in pictures. The churches are only still open because of the worshippers who support them all of the other days of the year.

Indeed. The OP said they had a connection to the parish, but not the actual church. If they had had a connection, none of this would have happened. The family (the OP's or her DH's) would have had a word, paid in cash, and the OP reimbursed them. I've seen this - pretty common local practice.

The OP says her DH went to school with the church warden's son, but that is not really a connection to the church or the congregation! Everything about this saga suggests that they were pretty much strangers picking a nice church in the town/village which happened to be near where the DH grew up.

Look at it from the church treasurer's point of view: these are people whom he doesn't know, they're not regular members of the congregation (nor their families either, it seems). He'd sent the invoice, specifying payment before the couple were married, and they had questioned about how to pay. But not actually paid.

Then they were married, still without actually paying the stated set fee, then they were uncontactable for 10 days, still hadn't actually paid the stated set fee.

The treasurer felt responsible for the fraud which he saw committed.

As the couple were pretty much strangers to the parish, how was the treasurer supposed to know they weren't intending not to pay? All their actions (as opposed to their words) pointed to them not intending to pay. No attempt to get a bank-produced cheque, or paying in cash, or getting someone in the family to pay by cheque. Nothing.

We weren’t trying to manage cash flow at all - that isn’t an issue!

DH does deliver cyber security webinars so I was trusting him on this. I’ve sent a thank you card and an additional £50 to the church rectory to smooth over any ruffled feathers.

I just feel a bit rubbish about it all now. And yes any other service would require payment in advance, but they would also give lots of notice and be available to confirm details over the phone, which the church weren’t. They would have chased a missed payment as well.

To the poster who said that I sound like hard work - I’m really going through a tough time and you know nothing about me. I hope it makes you feel good to hurt others.

Also we were not uncontactable for ten days. The church did not contact us.

We only started attending regularly this year for those who’ve asked if we were regular church goers. But we felt very welcomed and wanted to continue going.

Why didn’t you just speak to the vicar or the treasurer and ask for the bank info? Verbally, not in an email.

It’s a bit cheeky to use a church for a wedding if you’re not a regular parishioner and that might’ve got their backs up to be fair.

Of course they didn't contact you - it was Christmas, their busiest time of year!

You've had a bashing on this thread OP and kudos to you for coming back. It was reasonable to take steps to avoid fraud. It was unreasonable not to make every effort to ensure that the fee was paid before the service, even if that had meant entrusting an envelope of cash to the best man. It was unreasonable to contact the priest on Boxing Day, even by email. The treasurer was unreasonable and very rude.

You've made a gesture of apology. Time to move on.

@RedHelenB

Is it just me thinking that as your dh works in a bank you could have got a bank cheque to give the Church before the wedding.YABU.

He doesn’t work in a bank. He works for a bank. He’s currently installed in the home office.

The church didn’t have to agree to marry us - if they only wished to marry regular parishioners that would have been fine.

@wellthatsunusual

asking for bank details in two different ways makes no sense.

It makes perfect sense

How does it make sense?

Why do you need to be told bank details twice. You just write them down, read them back and use them.

OP was obviously stalling for some reason and vicar was rightly annoyed.

My tip,would be to get a cheque book. It’s useful lots of the time - the school DS went to only took cash or cheque.