Wedding invite QR code asking for bank details - is this a thing?

[Newbie2023]

AIBU to find this really odd - are we just totally out of touch with current wedding invitation protocols, or is this a thing now?

We’ve received a wedding invitation card for a friend’s son’s wedding, with a QR code to scan to say whether we will be attending, to access menu choices, etc.
No problem at all, happy to do these - but…

The QR code takes us straight to online forms that ask for our names, addresses, email addresses - ok.
However, the second page of the site asks us to enter our bank card details, and can’t move on without doing this, so can’t say if we’re attending, see a wedding list, give menu choices, etc.
It says the 7-day trial to use this site is free, then we will be charged monthly….
This feels a really odd thing to ask of your wedding guests, but happy to be told we’re just really out of touch!

Is this really actually a thing now?

Advice very welcome! TIA

No, GDPR is not relevant or a concern in this situation.

My guess is they’ve used a free trial on a wedding website and forgotten to add bank details now they’ve passed the trial period. Just let them know what’s happening.

those saying don’t attend - do you really behave like that in real life? Refuse to do anything that means having an open conversation with someone?

So is it a new thing that when you invite people to a wedding they are expected to pay to attend and and will be charged for any food they consume. They are guests not customers. Still a big fat no from me.

If it is a thing, I've never heard of it, and I most definitely would NOT be giving my bank details. If that means I can't go, then that would be fine by me!

Very true - but it's not normal to charge people for things when they haven't signed up as, or indicated a desire to be, customers in any way.

The only 'businesses' that I can think of that operate in this manner are the squeegee rogues who slosh filthy water over your windscreen when you've had to stop at a red light and then demand a fiver for it.

You have to have an alternative for people to phone or write to you to confirm/decline, though.

Everybody is going to have at least some elderly relatives who wouldn't have the faintest idea how to reply in this way - to them, you might as well be asking them to respond in Icelandic.

But that still doesn't explain in any way why a guest would pay or subscribe or why they would be asked to.

Even if it were a business sending out surveys to other businesses - if they didn't want to use MS Forms or Survey Monkey or similar - it would still be the business sending them out who would expect to pay.

Can you explain why anybody would want to sign up and pay to manage RSVPs that somebody else has sent out for their event? Are you saying that, if I also received an invitation to this wedding, I would pay/subscribe so that I could see how all of the other guests had responded and what meal choices they had made? Why on earth would I care? What would I do with that information? It's not my wedding!

Even IF (and it's a huge 'IF') I somehow did want to pay a one-off fee to interfere in the organisation of somebody else's event and see all of their irrelevant-to-me guest data, what possible reason would I have for wanting to subscribe and pay monthly for it? The whole idea of monthly subscriptions is that it's something you use on a monthly basis. This is as mad as Tesco selling me a tin of beans and asking me to subscribe to pay monthly, potentially forever, for that same tin of beans; in fact, no, it's more like them asking me to subscribe to pay for a tin of beans that the customer in front of me is buying!

Some people like the opportunity to dress up, maybe have a blub at the vows, and get free booze and scran.

Irish funerals tend to attract anybody who had ever heard of the deceased, or who knew their aunt's hairdresser's milkman's cousin's window-cleaner's sister's butcher - so why not, if that's what tickles your pickle?!

This thread is in the Australian media now too. What a storm in a teacup.

Loads of companies offer a free trial - have you honestly never been offered or seen an advert for a free couple of months on Netflix/Spotify etc in the hope you’ll use the service love it then keep the subscription?

Nobody is being asked to pay for their meals or the wedding, there are loads of online RSVP services that people can use for weddings or any other business event that they might want to collate RSVPs for.

It’s purely a marketing tool, of all the hundreds/thousands of people who are invited to a wedding where the bride & groom use this particular platform to collate their RSVPs there may well be other people getting married or working in events who may want to use this kind of service.

However, in this case I think it’s simply that the bride & groom haven’t tested what happens when I guest replies and don’t realise they’ve set it up wrong (probably if they’d paid a fee to use the site this free trial wouldn’t be offered).

On your tin of beans analogy, that’s exactly what lots of subscription services do when they give out codes to offer friends & family of a customer a free trial - like hello fresh often have a code you can share with others to see if they’ll continue with it in the future.

The OP doesn’t actually say that she’s not attending so why are you suggesting that she declines the invitation ??

But it's the bride and groom who are the customers.

I can understand them paying £x pm for the platform to plan their wedding but no-one's seriously suggesting that potentially dozens or even hundreds of guests also all pay a monthly amount to use the platform to enter their menu choices, view the gift list etc.

It's clearly a mistake but never let the simplest explanation get in the way of a good MN froth about other people's grabby weddings, an excuse not to attend or a potential GDPR breach. I'm surprised no-one has suggested calling 101 about it.

@Newbie2023 no it's surely literally just a scam, QR code fraud "quishing" is rife nowadays.
Basically some scammer in some far fling country has obtained your address and lots of others from somewhere, possibly worked out there's a wedding or maybe even the wedding isn't real, and used some other legitimate "send out your wedding invitations by post" type website to send out all the fake QR codes.
Then they collect all the card details and sell them on the dark web and then you have all the hassle of claiming money back later and replacing your card.
Treat it the same as all the text messages "from your bank" or "from HMRC"

@Newbie2023 are you going to check with your friend if this is a scam?

Oh do call 101, just to log it - or get a free hour with a solicitor to discuss…

🤣

Yes, of course, and these are companies that market to ME, hoping to get ME to sign up for them and subscribe to access a service that will benefit ME.

They still don't send me a link asking for my bank details, without making it very clear that I would be providing them for a free trial which will lead to a paid subscription if I don't cancel.

It's not the idea of free trials requiring bank details that is surprising many of us, but the bizarre context.

If you were visiting a friend and she asked if you wanted a coffee - and then told you she would need your bank details so that she could set up a monthly subscription for you before she could give you that one drink - would you think that entirely normal, purely on the basis that recognised commercial services that DO exist, and which provide you with clearly defined ongoing monthly content/services, DO ask for your bank details?

On your tin of beans analogy, that’s exactly what lots of subscription services do when they give out codes to offer friends & family of a customer a free trial - like hello fresh often have a code you can share with others to see if they’ll continue with it in the future.

I'm pretty sure Hello Fresh and similar companies keep on regularly delivering food to subscribers, for which they pay their subscriptions - they don't ask you to subscribe and pay monthly until you remember to cancel for one single food box that arrives once!

Also, the code that you share with friends will be clearly an invitation to sign up for a free trial/subscription for regular food deliveries - they won't invite you to a get-together and ask people to confirm attendance by giving their bank details so that they can be unwittingly subscribed to something else random and unconnected!

I've received something like this from a relation who was getting married, they were using a wedding planner type thing