To be fair this is very hit or miss, depends largely on your transaction history, the specific bank (and branch) policies, if that bank manager is having a bad day, etc. And that's the problem.

I've been hit by the insanity of "yes it's your money but you can't have it" from banks before, and it's one of those things you think everyone else must be a borderline criminal and/or exaggerating until it happens to you.

Anecdote isn't entirely useful here. The fact is they can do it, and even with sizable assets I had far fewer avenues of recourse than one may initially think. This made me really rethink banking security in a new sense.