Woori Bank - Where Everything Is 'Impossible'

The Problem:

My salary goes into my Woori Bank account on Feb 15th along with a Winter School Camp payment,

but ....

I'm leaving Korea on February 4th and hopefully wont be coming back.

My employer won't send my salary and camp payments to my overseas New Zealand account because I'm still technically under contract with them until the end of February (welcome to friendly Korea folks!).

So I go and speak with Woori bank who say.....

it's 'impossible' to have my bank account closed on a specific date (say Feb 16th) unless I'm personally there to do it. When I asked about writing an authorization letter which gives someone permission to close my account for me..... again I'm told 'impossible'.

Yes, I could try using their English banking website, but I've never managed to do anything on that site without problems occurring (the Active X plugin's required are the least of your issues). Further, I'm fairly sure this website isn't even set up for international money transfers.

Alternatively, I could open a KEB account (my boss suggested this) which would allow me to withdraw my money using internet banking when I arrive in New Zealand.

However, I simply don't trust work send my money to this new account (they have a long history is screwing this up).

My Solution:

So I'm gonna leave my Woori account open and have a trusted friend manually withdrawal my cash from a ATM machine. They will then wire transfer my money to me in New Zealand.

Not the best solution I know.

What bugs me the most about all this is just how inflexible both organizations are (my work and the bank). Surely 100's of foreigners have been in the same situation before me?

There simply needs to be a better system put in place.

Oh, and when a Korean person says 'impossible' to you...it means .... 'we don't know the answer to your question/s and can't be bothered helping you. Please go away'.

Rant over :)