Your points are well stated. Having your passport burned can't be a good thing. I still think Lamar should at least try and convince the Foreign Experts Bureau to get a police report because the people working there are direct members of the GongAn (Official Police). The bank should at least issue an official apology.
If only the local media would get wind of this. Maybe exposing the bank and making them lose face would be another option?

There might be questions asked about this burnt passport-the only explaination I can think is that he put his passport under a wen xiang which ruptured during the night and a bit of it fell off and did the dirty deed...trouble is, wrong time of year for burning wen xiang.

Complaints against the bank for damaging passport under the scanner?...wishful thinking. Taking all this to Foreign Experts Bureau? You are giving bad advice, and trying to get this innocent bloke on a merry dance to achieve nothing but grief for himself.

He needs to just attend his appointment with the authorities and take it from there.