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.

YANBU. You didn't have the details, perfectly reasonable and correct to check them.

I don't have a cheque book either - bank transfer is hardly an unknown method of payment.

They've been rude to you for no reason, and it's mean especially over Christmas and when so many are struggling with Covid. I suspect there is more to this than meets the eye and unfortunately you're getting their wrath e.g. perhaps they might be making church staff redundant, or there is internal politics. So I suggest you let it go and try and forgive them, as they may be struggling.

I also check bank details by phone if they've been sent by email but the impetus was on you to call and do that. The vicar and other staff/volunteers would be swamped at this time of year especially with covid - organising online services or allocating a limited number of tickets to parishioners.

You could have taken cash to the rehearsal or on the day.

It's useful to keep a chequebook for these types of things, I use mine for one off charity donations when I don't want to give my email address or set up a direct debit.

some people don’t know how invoice fraud works

And some people don't understand about paying prior to their wedding but the rock up to the wedding and have their day anyway.

YABU and was wasting time.

You are right OP. No need for rudeness and it doesn't sound very Christian like either.

Tbh I disagree with paying for the Sacraments anyway. Should be donations in my opinion.

We thought a new invoice was being sent out - that’s why we didn’t ring. It isn’t always easy to get hold of anyone on the phone and we thought the treasurer was posting another invoice out.

You did give the Vicar a generous envelope of cash as well didn't you?
I assume because of covid you were unable to host them at the reception.

@Farontothemaddingcrowd

We hadn’t confirmed the bank details over the phone.

How much money are we talking here? £500 quid? I’m guessing Not a million quid hardly the bank heist of the century. I would have just sent the money over when you had the details emailed. YABU.

@Russell19

You are right OP. No need for rudeness and it doesn't sound very Christian like either.

Tbh I disagree with paying for the Sacraments anyway. Should be donations in my opinion.

Why?! You want the service, you should have to pay.

Forget about it now. You have paid, everything is straight. Move on.

So when you sent the money on Boxing Day rather than drop the cash off, did you use the bank details previously emailed, or by this point had you verbally confirmed them?

A large amount?
Church of England?

Really?

This is a church, not a shop. The fact that they wanted paying by cheque initially and then suggested cash, should have alerted you to the fact that they weren’t geared up for the method of payment you wanted to use. You’ve probably caused a furore which will have to be debated at length at the next PCC meeting 😱

Just thank them for the lovely ceremony and apologise for any hurt due to misunderstandings. Donate an amount for the church spire, if such a thing exists. No problem.

I wasn’t keen to carry £620 in cash tbh but we could have done that I suppose as well. It was just a misunderstanding I think. I didn’t ‘rock up’ to my wedding thanks - all the money was there in a separate account and I had absolutely every intention of paying them.

Surely you could have verbally checked and just sent payment rather than await another email incase the first one was fraudulent

You've post a sarcastic emoji at the end of a sentence which indicates you don't understand the facts or the the problem.

She didn't want a second email. She thought she was going to be sent physical mail with the correct details.

As someone who works in cyber security I can assure you that you did the right thing, it is incredibly easy to spoof an email address and I see people losing hundreds of thousands everyday from this, any security advisor will tell you the same thing, never take details from any email as being correct, do whatever it takes to confirm those details also never call the number on the email, google the number then call the reception and ask them to put you through, try not to go direct, this also prevents internal fraud as you have a record of being put through rather than going direct, don’t fall into the trap of assuming it’s only a small amount so unlikely to be targeted, having said that, you probably could have confirmed sooner although they got their money so why the hassle

small world, DH trains in Cyber Security and Church treasurer's son is a Bank VP of Cyber Security. too much cyber not enough communicating, should have just paid . Take it you are not regular churchgoers, could have sorted it after service

@Russell19

You are right OP. No need for rudeness and it doesn't sound very Christian like either.

Tbh I disagree with paying for the Sacraments anyway. Should be donations in my opinion.

If it was left to donations many people would think they were generous giving £20. How is a church supposed to be kept open, maintained, bills paid etc just so people who don't attend can use it as an insta-worthy wedding location?

Most churches don't charge long term parshioners btw.

I would need closure but you’re much better to walk away. I’d be typing a non-emotional email with bullet points outlining the timeline of what happened. I’d apologise for my own misunderstanding then add a bible quote at the end:
Matthew 7:12 - "So in everything, do unto others what you would have them do to you.

You know it was a genuine mistake. You’ve paid the money. Let him know he’s a knob and move on.

Agree with you that rudeness is not called for. A slight breakdown in communication and everything paid up, what 5 working days after due which if paid by cheque as requested would have cleared for about 1 more day. Being rude about it changes absolutely nothing. Best not to give it another thought and enjoy married life🥰

Simple: there are plenty of guides for brides on social media and online. Give an honest review of their rudeness, their archaic practices regards payment and how upsetting it was.
Who even has a cheque book anymore?

Stand against the treasurer and overthrow him. That'll teach him.

We have to verify all bank details on paper/email and verbally before pay out. Our firm paid out several hundred thousand pounds to a scammer when these scams first started.

I had to instigate a payment of nearly a million pounds last week and despite doing all the checks, I was bricking it until I knew the money had arrived into the correct account.

Your DH was NBU.

Even if you did pay a bit later than the church would have preferred, the email was totally unprofessional so they are BU