Ok, after some angry e-mails, I finally received a reply. However, the reply was partly satisfactory, and partly not. The good news is that they released my order for shipping, and I have now received it.

Unfortunately, I could not draw a proper response as to why they needed the information. All I could get was that they have had a lot of fraud problems in the past, so are looking for better ways of requesting this bank information. Whether the bank information is to protect against fraud, or fraud has occured because they ask for this information inscurely (over e-mail), I could not ascertain. Apparently my e-mail was being forwarded to their supervisors to help improve their customer services.

Anyway, if anyone else comes up against this problem and are upset waiting for a reply e-mail and wants to phone them, PM me as I have a number now...

Cheers,
Rikki