(WWJ) Chances are, if you're on social media, you've seen posts from your Facebook friends announcing a birthday or other event — and then asking for cash.
While many of us enjoy gift-giving, experts say requesting financial gifts via Cash App or the like on social media slinks into shaky territory.
Speaking live on WWJ Newsradio 950, Thomas Farley — an etiquette expert and author known as "Mister Manners" — calls it a bridge too far.
"This is the very efficient equivalent of the person who brings their daughter's Girl Scout cookie forms to the office and passes them around, and everybody kind of feels obligated to give. And while that is certainly a much smaller scale, the guilt factor is the same," he told WWJ's Brooke Allen.
"And what I think what people need to realize is that just because the requests are out there, it does not mean that you are obligated to donate."
Farley says a birthday should not be a fundraiser, especially considering that so many of the people we interact with on social media are not necessarily good friends.
"We starting seeing it a couple of years ago with people asking for money for charity on their birthdays," Farley said.
"And although the cause of that if noble, when you think that the Facebook limit for the number of friends you have is 5,000. Imagine if any of us felt the need, out of guilt, to contribute to each person's charity of choice, or to their own friends — giving money donations to their friends — we'd all be bankrupt very quickly."
Farley said if the request is coming from a good friend, and you really want to send a gift, he would suggest reaching out to them personally.
What's his number one social media etiquette tip?
It's simple:
"If you would not say something to someone's face, do not say it on Facebook, do not say it on social media," Farley said. "Don't use the cloak of social media as a means to say things that you wouldn't say to somebody if you could actually look them directly in their eyes."