I'm still laughing on my story with HSBC when I first move to Vancouver 14 years ago from HK.
Back then, my daily ATM transaction limit in HK was 10k HKD. I came here and the next day I went to open up an account with HSBC. They gave me a bank card with $100 daily limit even I do had a good chunk of money in my account.
I went back the other day and nicely asked for a raise on my daily limit. This mid-age Chinese lady literately gave me a 15 mins lecture saying how $100 was enough to live in Vancouver. She even said I didn't have a job in town and HSBC wouldn't consider the request to raise my daily limit. I had to argue with her so badly and eventually she agreed to raise it to $300. I walked out from the bank and thought Vancouver was a dead town (where $100 means a lot) and all bank tellers were crazy. LOL.
From the Bank's point of view it is very understandable, because if you lose anything in your account, the bank is held accountable. A lot of Chinese people commit acts of fraud upon themselves to obtain personal profit through the bank's insurance policy. I guess the tellers thought you were one of those dudes.