It's Austria, not Australia! Austria! Austria! Austria!

My suspicions should have been aroused when I talked to that nice HSBC lady shortly before I left the island.

Can I have my money transferred to my Austrian account, lets say in December, after the tax has been refunded?
Yes, you certainly can. You just give us a written request with your account details and the date you wish it to be transferred and we will transfer it to your Australian account.
'AUSTRIAN', I think, but never mind.... (and, hey, was she paying me a compliment because my English sounds like I was a native speaker?... apparently I'm either from South Africa or from Australia, according to British guessers...)

I didn't think about this any longer but went "home" (to my dark and tiny room without view) and wrote the request.

A few days later I went to the bank again to hand in the handwritten piece of paper (I hope they'll do what I want them to and didn't toss it away....). At this moment it occurred to me that this was not the only thing I wanted HSBC to do for me and so I asked, could you maybe also send me my account and balance details to my home address from now on, because I'm leaving in two days ....
Which was of course no problem. Just fill in one of these forms.

Which I did: I put down my home address and I'm pretty sure I DID NOT write "Australia" in the gap labelled "country".

Anyways, I had thought about my bank account recently because I wondered how it was possible that my balance increased between Sept. 10th and Oct. 18th without my doing anything. And I was also wondering if I'd ever get a letter from the bank that would clarify the facts for me...

So today I was taken by surprise when I entered the kitchen and on my part of the table I found an envelope with gigantic permanent marker ornaments on it: Somebody had drawn an arrow from the address and written AUSTRIA - EUROPE across the whole front in huge letters. It had apparently been misdirected first...... to Down Under.

One should think that a bank is well organised and employs people who do things diligently and therefore read carefully... but obviously not.

I think I'll send them a mail.