A young relative of mine is having a miserable time cashing Treasury bonds that were gifted to her through TreasuryDirect for her tuition.

Treasury is requiring she get a medallion signature guarantee from a bank to access her funds but, like 40%+ of her generation, she uses online banking with no accessible branch. Treasury insists she can get this from any bank, but as the guarantor is liable for a loss, there's no way they will provide this to a non-client. They generally won't even make their ordinary notary public available.

So she is now switching financial institutions simply to access a modest amount in her TreasuryDirect account. If you are thinking about gifting saving bonds to someone: do them a favor and don't.