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.

Sounds like a simple misunderstanding. You should have chased harder before the wedding, they should have got back to you about the request but for some reason they didn't.

He has over reacted hugely but you were technically in the wrong. You've paid the money, he's had a whinge about it and stamped his feet. Probably best to draw a line under it and move on.

@PurplePansy05

Surely it's up to the business (i.e. the church in this case) to adapt, rather than the customer?

Do you recognise it's the CoE not Primark?

Well actually the net worth of the Church of England is about eight times that of Primark...

But even in the context of this particular parish church, sooner or later they are going to have to modernise their finances as cheques are phased out.

Even tiny little organisations like amateur choirs (which are also often registered charities) generally use internet banking these days, as do my parents and their siblings in their late 70s; it's pretty standard.

Just email back and say they are not being very Christian like

I think you were right to want to check the bank details however you're being unreasonable.

You knew you ought to have paid prior to your wedding and should have paid by then and certainly before you went on honeymoon even if it meant transferring £ to a family member and asking them to write the cheque. There was absolutely no need for you to "wait for an invoice". The fact you were changing the method of payment to make things easier for you when you already knew they preferred cheque was not going to change the amount payable.

You certainly weren’t being unreasonable to want confirmation of bank details that had only been sent to you in an email.

@honeylulu

You are entirely correct to want to call to confirm the bank details are correct. I work for a solicitors firm and if we don't do that it's a gross misconduct offence. Our payments in and out have been intercepted and fraudulently acquired on a few occasions over the years before this procedure became compulsory.

However your husband didn't need to wait for an amended invoice. Fair enough the bank details weren't on the original one but you'd been sent them by email. You or he should have made effort to call and verify them. You didn't need to wait for an amended invoice. I appreciate this isn't always easy. Our church parish office is open for two hours a week - in a Wednesday and Friday! But you could have called the vicarage. Or withdrawn and dropped off cash. (Our church asked us to bring cash to the wedding rehearsal.) So if you made no further effort prior to the wedding, it would have seemed that you weren't bothered, particularly if you aren't known to the church.

The treasurers email was unnecessarily rude though. Given that you HAD paid! It's be tempted to remind him that wrath is one of the seven deadly sins but of course you forgive him and will pray that God will too, but I'm a bit prone to be PA.

I appreciate that church treasurers and secretaries are volunteers but if they are taking on an onerous role they have a duty to do it properly, and politely. Sometimes the power seems to go to their heads. I once booked our church hall for a birthday party. I am a regular parishioner. I paid in advance the required sum of £40 plus a voluntary donation of £60. I was telephoned on Wednesday and told I would have to collect the key from the parish office on Friday between 12 and 1pm. I work full time in London and that wasn't possible. I suggested I could pick the key up from someone's house in the evening or someone could drop it to me (my house was about 200 yards from the church). Mocking laughter and "oh no dear we don't do that". I took matters into my own hands and approached the vicar (a friend) directly who was much more amenable.

Apparently when the primary school in the same road started hiring out their hall for parties with much more user friendly arrangements the church lost a lot of "business" and were very narked ...

Translation: 'I am so important - I work in London doncha know! - I can't pick up the keys, even if they could be collected locally. Someone else must drop them into my hand! I am so very, very important that I pressed the issue. The local vicar was embarrassed for me.'

Nun, you're being obtuse. You know exactly in what context I meant this, they are not as cyber savvy as large retailers, for example. Should they be? Yes. Are they? No. So for the time being, it's wise to deal with this appropriately.

I’ve bowed out of this now but thanks for the congratulations. I agree we could have paid in cash. It’s all done now - though I do think the invoice should have got to us earlier.

I won’t be replying any further on here as I have paid and it’s all sorted. I appreciate the posts from all.

Why did you not pay by cash on the day of the wedding?

You don't pay a church to get married. You give a donation and sometimes this can be a one off or each time you attend.

You can only marry at our town’s registry office if you have paid the fees in full three clear months before the wedding date. The CofE fee is a statutory fee, not a generous donation. You should have made a greater effort to pay on time but the treasurer was unnecessarily rude.

Their mistake. They're probably angry because they were embarrassed they didn't realise you'd not paid til you told them. They were unprofessional about it. But time to move on now. Don't let it ruin memories of your happy day

@PurplePansy05

They're still providing a service. It would be easier for them to get more experienced with online banking on top of that.

But this is not how things work in reality and OP has failed to recognise this and adapt, this is the point.

In the ideal world everyone would be up to speed, CS compliant and there'd be hardly any invoice fraud, but alas it is what it is.

Sorry if I'm being obtuse, but how could the OP have "adapted", other than by ordering a cheque book - especially for this transaction - that wouldn't have arrived in time anyway?

I realise you're not listening any more but really this was just some grumpy codger who was probably mildly rebuked by the vicar and decided to put the blame on you. Obviously it wasn't that important or they wouldn't have married you.

As a fellow anxious person I get why this has bothered you but if you can just roll your eyes at tetchy defensive crap admin man you'll be a lot better off. Congratulations!

@B1rthis

You don't pay a church to get married. You give a donation and sometimes this can be a one off or each time you attend.

No, this is incorrect. There is a nationally set statutory fee to marry in an Anglican Church, much as registry offices charge fees. It’s currently £550.

You didn’t want to carry the cash, you didn’t want to send a cheque, you wanted to pay online. It was entirely down to you to make sure you had the details to do so and to make the payment in time. Not getting an entirely unnecessary second invoice and blaming them for not sending it is a crappy thing to do.

You had many, many days to call and confirm the details, and what kind of shabby bank doesn’t have payee verification when making online payment these days? If you were so desperate to make the payment, as you claim, you would have done it. It really isn’t a big deal to take the cash down there, unless you were planning on carrying it in a clear plastic bag so everyone could see.

Stop making excuses and just apologise to the treasurer.

Sounds like a genuine mistake.

They don't sound particularly Christian tbh. I thought that religion was all about forgiveness? Now whenever you think of your wedding you'll think about that too and it won't be such a nice memory. Sound like total miseries.

to be honest the church IS a business - they need to make paying easier and it is paying you say vol donation but if you don't donat there are consequences and potentially no service so it is a contractual arrangement - as such an implied level of service. Try phoning your local church - its nigh on impossible. We were arranging MIL funeral and even though we had a direct phone number for the priest (Catholic rather than C of E) we were unable to finalise the last bits until sat in the pews waiting for the service to start! Despite me trying leaving messages, emailing and using the mobile number and also leaving messages. Weddings are busy times and just before Christmas even more so - You were "reasonable", maybe not perfect but certainly reasonable and the anger and frustration expressed by the treasurer was inappropriate

What an unpleasant chap. It's not really bearing with one another in love, is it. You expect a bit more from a church man.

I can see how the misunderstanding arose as you thought the new invoice was in the post.

He's being most unpleasant and unnecessarily so. You'll never see him again and he was nothing to your wedding. There will be people like this. You learn to ignore them.

Congratulations on your wedding, OP, and please don't let that bad-tempered jobsworth upset you with his rudeness. Send some sympathetic vibes to his colleagues and family, and just be glad you don't have to deal with him again!

@covidaintacrime

How can anybody comment on the tone/rudeness of the email when you haven't posted it?

Even this; he had needed to ‘calm down’ because he was so angry. is unreasonable to me.

I take paraphrasing with a BIG pinch of salt!

Op YANBU
Wow there is a lot of people on here who would fall for an email scam.
If you make an online payment to a new payee it tells you to check the details with the receiver to make sure.
Some banks have a new feature to check the payee name but as this would either be a business ac or a clubs and society ac they wouldn't be able to use that facility.

The church were unreasonable. If they needed payment by 19 they needed to send the invoice a good 10 working days
before they did to allow a cheque to be sent and cleared.
I worked in a bank for nearly 20 years until recently and we have had emails sent to house buyers with bank details supposedly from their solicitors and after the payments have been sent their have found out it was a fake email and they have lost their house deposit. If OP sent the money to the wrong ac she would still owe the money so she is 100% right to check.

YANBU OP.

As you've seen, sympathy for you will be a bit limited. Many people in here are quite naive about the risks and have a very limited understanding of cyber security.

To be honest, I suspect the vicar was a bit peeved about a phone call on Boxing Day. Christmas is such a busy time for vicars, even with Covid restrictions, and Boxing Day is the first time they can actually sit down and relax with family after a very very busy few weeks.The last thing he wanted was a call about this on his first day off
I suspect he had words with the treasurer about not sorting this out before the weddings, and the treasurer felt embarrassed and no doubt was upset.
Just move on now, send a card thanking them for making your day special and apologising for your part in the payment delay.

@B1rthis

You don't pay a church to get married. You give a donation and sometimes this can be a one off or each time you attend.

You pay in a C of E church It is a fixed fee nationally,you can then add extras You traditionally invite the vicar and wife to the reception but now more commonly just given them cash instead on the day.