The Henan branch of the Bank of China declaring that people's savings in their branch are now 'investment products' and can't be withdrawn

During the 2008 financial crisis, they pulled a similar move in Greece, I think, confiscating people’s balances to cover bank losses. They justified it by saying the customers were “investors” and therefore their funds were subject to the losses, too. And Chase bank’s systems melted down one day around then and everyone’s account balance went to zero. That was restored, but a reporter at the time advised that customers start going frequently to print a balance receipt from an ATM to have on hand as proof of their account balance in case that sort of thing happened again. I do that to this day, and ask for a receipt with every single transaction, though I know it might not help if the banks go full dystopia on us.