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That resembles some paper processes in Japan, e.g. to get an international conference trip refunded (as a PhD student) I need to submit around seven forms: 1. Application for travel 2. Acceptance for travel 3. Schedule 4. Request for payment of conference entrance fee 5. Export control form 6. Travel Report 7. Notice of absence

Because most of these are also required for travelling within Japan I sometimes just don't bother asking for a refund.

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That sounds like any academic institute I’ve come across. After I did the fleet of forms, they managed to credit the money to someone else who shared the same last name, and then send them a crabby message demanding repayment. Happened the next few times as well. What permanently corrected this behaviour was me getting the recipient to send the money directly to me minus a transaction fee, theb asking for it to be refunded. Good times.

The only plausible explanation for this is if they store the names in order like: <Last Name> <First Initial> and somehow just assume the first Smith J is correct.

Maybe, they ask for account number, address, employee number etc. None of those other details matched.

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