You may clearly understand that, Don, but that's far from universal. There may be many reasons for that: including reluctance to be unpleasant at that particular face-to-face moment.  Another reason - and one that appears to have been the case in at least one of the circumstances here - is that the employer representative really hasn't looked into your record yet.

I'll repeat: the sensible thing for a departing employee to do is ask.  And it certainly isn't 'bad faith' for an employer to give a bad one.