Not quite as fun but my mum works for postal services in Austria and there’s a special stamp for mail accidentally sent to Austria instead of Australia
The volume of missent mail has certainly gone down in recent years due to both communication moving online and international post adopting more precise adress systems, but 10-15 years ago you could get parcels with multiple “missent to Austria - missent to Australia” stamps on them due to some incompetent people not realizing where it should actually go.
My wife ordered something from Sweden years ago and apparently there’s a city in the US with the same name as ours, so it was sent there. Then to Jamaica, because… Who knows. Then to Germany, where customs wanted to have taxes collected, because it came from the Americas. We told them to send it back to Sweden. Four years later, DHL wrote a letter asking for money for the effort handing it over to customs.
I went to Vienna for a conference for work in 2016. When I got back, I turned in my receipts, and the admin assistant helpfully typed up my reimbursement paperwork, carefully converting to USD from Australian dollars.
It was at that moment that I was glad I’d made my own flight and hotel reservations.
My favourite urban legend is that there’s a special desk at the Vienna airport for people who accidentally flew to Austria instead of Australia.
Not quite as fun but my mum works for postal services in Austria and there’s a special stamp for mail accidentally sent to Austria instead of Australia
The volume of missent mail has certainly gone down in recent years due to both communication moving online and international post adopting more precise adress systems, but 10-15 years ago you could get parcels with multiple “missent to Austria - missent to Australia” stamps on them due to some incompetent people not realizing where it should actually go.
Talking about incompetence…
My wife ordered something from Sweden years ago and apparently there’s a city in the US with the same name as ours, so it was sent there. Then to Jamaica, because… Who knows. Then to Germany, where customs wanted to have taxes collected, because it came from the Americas. We told them to send it back to Sweden. Four years later, DHL wrote a letter asking for money for the effort handing it over to customs.
Same the other way around. And for the Koreas
I’ve had ‘missent to Australia; try Austria’ hand written on a parcel, so I didn’t know that!
Imagine the shenanigans if a small town in Australia with a small airport was named Vienna
I went to Vienna for a conference for work in 2016. When I got back, I turned in my receipts, and the admin assistant helpfully typed up my reimbursement paperwork, carefully converting to USD from Australian dollars.
It was at that moment that I was glad I’d made my own flight and hotel reservations.