The Malta/Cyprus crisis is the most recent. There's other tactics that was used in Greece and in the US before the FDIC. First in, first out + daily cap. In t

The Malta/Cyprus crisis is the most recent. There's other tactics that was used in Greece and in the US before the FDIC. First in, first out + daily cap. In this model, the institution states they have $X of liquidity say tomorrow, you can withdraw up to $Y. You do X/Y and you get the number of customers that can withdraw the maximum amount. My grandparents lived in Chicago at the time and said there was a time when a separate family member would be in line 24 hours a day. One for tomorrow and one for the day after that, etc. But even then they got back like $0.20 on the dollar (my last grandparent died about 30 years ago so forgive me if some details are off) But generally speaking a good faith effort is made to honor the depositors balances. The schemes to do so varies, but it's generally not 0. These people running these institutions might be gamblers but they generally aren't sociopathic soulless con-artists - there's more lucrative things to do for those with no moral compass