Unclaimed-Funds.com

West Virginia Unclaimed Funds

admin — Wed, 13 May 2009 11:05:06 +0000

Did you ever wonder what happens to abandoned bank accounts and other financial assets whose owners (and relatives of the original owners) can’t be found? The Unclaimed Property Law requires financial institutions and businesses to pass them along to the government after a certain ‘dormancy period’. These assets will remain in the hands of the State Treasury until the rightful owners claim them. The law also requires states to make efforts in getting the lost money back to their rightful owners. Some states show more efficiency than others when it comes to this and the state of West Virginia regularly places among the nation’s top 10 in rate of return, according to a recent statement by the State’s Treasury Department.

Jubilant West Virginia Residents all over the state have been getting unclaimed money checks from financial assets they forgot about at some point in time . In Harrison County, a total of $193,563 has been given back to a handful of residents of the state in less than three weeks - this according to a recent report. In Beckley, a total of $220 thousand in West Virginia unclaimed money checks were handed out, and an elderly South Charleston woman was given $23,000 worth of United States Savings Bonds that were in her deceased sister’s name. “To receive $23,000 that you basically didn’t know existed is quite nice,” said Anne McConihay. “I had heard things about those bonds through the years but never saw any of them.” stated the 84-year-old McConihay who had also owned bonds purchased by her father but does not exactly recall what happened to them. “Ms. McConihay’s situation is a perfect example of why states should be given the responsibility of returning these bonds,” noted State Treasurer Perdue. “This money belongs to people, not the federal government. And states already have the systems and expertise in place to complete this mission.”

After receiving $117,000 from the State Treasury Office, Andy Bragg, of Southern West Virginia Paving said, “We were very surprised when the State Treasurer’s office called and told us they might have some unclaimed property that belonged to us.”

Despite efforts of award winning West Virginia State Treasurer John Perdue to give back missing money that belong to his state’s residents however, there is still roughly $110 million waiting to be discovered in West Virginia alone.

The West Virginia unclaimed money total is so massive for the same reasons the nationwide unclaimed money from lost assets has amassed to over $33 billion. According to State Treasurer John Perdue, unclaimed money can arrive from a variety of sources - mainly because people just plain forgot about them. “They may have a paycheck coming to them that they didn’t realize or some stock their grandparents purchased when they were a child and it was forgotten in a safety deposit box,” Perdue says. “There are all kinds of unclaimed property examples where money was forgotten.”

No matter the reason, residents of ‘The Mountain State’ always need to do an unclaimed money search in West Virginia and other states. The easiest and most convenient way is to do this online with the assistance of a legitimate unclaimed money expert who can show you the proper methods of doing thorough and effective searches for your unclaimed money as well as pre-escheat properties (lost assets that have not yet been handed over to the state).

Solutions: Residents could have unclaimed property - Hanford Sentinel
(Editor’s note: This week’s Solutions section, starting on Page A5, is a goldmine of suggestions on how to make or save money. Make crafts and sell them, for one thing. Scale back on your vacation and take a hike. And when all else fails, here’s how …

Free money? Get your unclaimed treasure - KGO
BURLINGAME, CA (KGO) — The state could be holding money that should be in your pocket. It could even be holding a family heirloom. There are some big changes happening at the state’s unclaimed property division. Springtime in Burlingame seemed like …

Single parents struggle to get past due child support - Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
While many Florida families struggle to pay bills, the state is sitting on $28 million in child-support payments — largely because it says it can’t find the parents owed the money. Florida’s stockpile of undistributed child-support payments has more …

Lumberton woman indicted on theft charges (Burlington County Times)
TRENTON - A former clerk with the state Division of Taxation was indicted Monday for stealing unclaimed funds in 2006, the state Attorney General’s Office announced.

Hawaii Unclaimed Money

admin — Mon, 11 May 2009 10:05:04 +0000

Believe it or not, the mainland states are not the only ones getting a piece of the multi-billion dollar unclaimed funds bonanza. Hawaii unclaimed money has now reached the huge amount of 130 million dollars! The best thing is, this money isn’t a gamble, citizens are either due a claim or they are not, and if they are, the only obstacle standing between them and their lost cash is the knowledge of how to locate the money.

Of the dozens of potential sources of HI unclaimed funds, the Department of Budget and Finance lists the most common varieties as contents of safe deposit boxes, stock certificates, uncashed checks, and dormant (no activity for 5 years) checking and savings accounts.

HI continues to have a huge amount of money remaining unclaimed due to the fact that people simply have not accepted the reality of unclaimed funds. Too often people assume missing money is a scam, based on the old “there’s no such thing as free money” so many times. Among those few who are aware of these forgotten funds, most are not informed about the right way to perform a complete search for them.

Even for those few who have been able to track down their funds, the state of HI has them jumping through so many hoops to prove they are who they say they are, that they are very often left not reunited with their money, despite the fact that they know that it’s there. HI insists that owners of unclaimed funds to have a number of identifying documents as evidence that they are the rightful owners of the cash, and to prove that they in fact lived at the last known addresses listed in the records they have on file. The moral of the story is that if you are attempting to take back lost money in HI, keep records as diligently as possible, or the process of taking your money back might be more of a headache than it’s worth.

Aside from having a hard time proving their identities to the state, citizens of HI have a number of problems that can inhibit their unclaimed asset searches. For example, most Hawaiian’s who have previously resided in any other state usually do not realize that the state of HI would have absolutely no record of any lost funds from any other state. So if someone living in HI once resided in Ohio, they would need to search Ohio’s records, or the records of any other state they’d resided in.

Beyond just reaching outside of the Hawaiian Islands to track down money owed to them, a lot of people still have trouble finding their money because they simply do not know how to go about their search within the state. One of the largest problems is that people often search only one time and then never revisit the matter again. The issue with doing this, is the fact that any monies that have notbeen handed over to the state, because their dormancy periods have not expired, will not show up in any state records, because the state does not have any idea that they exist. Many times even after the assets have been handed over, the state hasn’t added the listing to their unclaimed funds list, so once again, a state record search would be fruitless. In both of these cases, a searcher could try to search the next day, week or month, and find their record, but the majority of people just quit after a single search.

For more tips on overcoming issues that often prevent searchers from claiming their unclaimed funds, Hawaiian citizens would benefit greatly from seeking help from an unclaimed funds expert to aid them traveling through the maze of taking back what already belongs to them.

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Could the state of Missouri have your money or property? - KSDK
KSDK — It is being called “Missouri’s Largest Lost and Found.” Tuesday morning, Missouri State Treasurer Clint Zweifel is set to open up a number of recently acquired safe deposit boxes in Jefferson City. This is to let Missourians know they may …

Mo. Seeks Unclaimed Property Owners - KCTV 5
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — From cash to collectibles, if someone has left it behind in a safety deposit box, the state of Missouri has got it. “We found a safety deposit box, and the only thing in it was a ski mask, a gun and a change of clothes …

Palmetto Payback: Millions still unclaimed - WIS-TV
COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) - Who couldn’t use some extra money these days? If you think you’re owed cash, then now is the time to find out. The state Treasurer’s office has put together the “Palmetto Payback” program to help find the owners of millions of …

States Have Millions in Unclaimed Property (KSHB-TV Kansas City)
The Missouri State Treasurer says much of it is cash and other valuables in old safe deposit boxes. Find out if it could be yours.

Top 25 properties in Cass County part of Great Iowa Treasure Hunt - Atlantic News-Telegraph
It’s not that time of year to see who’s naughty or nice, but State Treasurer Michael L. Fitzgerald has made a list and has checked it twice to see who has the top 25 unclaimed properties in Cass county. The spring publication of the Great Iowa …

Unclaimed Assets in Missouri

admin — Fri, 08 May 2009 18:05:05 +0000

According to Sarah Steelman, Missouri unclaimed money recently grew to the huge sum of $400 million. This mountain of cash is likely to grow, because as with most states, MO takes in more unclaimed money each year than is returned to the citizens. Among the number of reasons why these funds continue to go unclaimed, is the fact that most people aren’t aware of unclaimed money, and the few that are don’t know the correct way to search.

As we see MO unclaimed money numbers approaching a half of $1 billion, the “Show Me State” ought to change its name to the “Show Me The Money State”. So where does all that money come from? There are quite a number of different sources for unclaimed money, a few of the most common are safe deposit boxes, certificates of deposit, abandoned bank accounts, life insurance policies, forgotten stocks, and checks that have not been cashed.

Despite the fact that there isn’t a time limit on claiming forgotten funds, MO only guarantees that they will hold items from safe deposit boxes for 1 year (though they do occassionally hold on to them for longer). According to the MO State Treasury web site, this is how they handle these assets: “Although State Treasurer Steelman would like to keep the contents of safe deposit boxes until an owner or heir is identified, the unclaimed property vault used to store non-monetary items of value (jewelry, coins, etc.) reaches capacity every couple of years. When the vault is full, the Unclaimed Property Division hosts an auction, and the proceeds generated from the sale of items from safe deposit boxes is recorded in the name of the safe deposit box owner. If owners or heirs are identified, they receive the entire proceeds from the sale of the items.”

It’s clear that for those citizens who use (or have used) a safe deposit box, it is very important to get started on your search quickly if the items have a sentimental value to you, but worst case scenario is that you will get the proceeds if your items sell. Luckily for the rest of us, most of the money doesn’t come from unclaimed property auctions.

Whether you are a former or current MO resident, or even in some cases, haven’t ever resided in MO at all, the odds that lost money is owed to you, are in your favor. Of course the awesome part about money derived from unclaimed money is that the assets already rightfully belongs to people. This means there are no games or gambling involved. The only thing keeping missing cash from turning in to found cash, for most people, is the knowledge about how to search, and where to search.

A number of myths exist about unclaimed money. The most common is the idea that performing just one internet search on any old web site constitutes a full search. The problem is most of these “official” searches, are anything but, and their info is quite often not current if not completely wrong, and only serves as a sales hook. One of the other most common myths is the idea that the state’s databases are up to date and accurate.

There is not a single law that dictates when each state, including MO, has to update their unclaimed money databases. Because of this, one of the best things people can do is search regularly. If your money has only been determined to be “unclaimed” recently, it likely wouldn’t appear in MO’s system until it is first been handed over by the account holder, and then whenever the state treasury office adds the record.

To learn more about these unclaimed money search obstacles, and a number of others, and it is important to seek out expert assistance in your quest for forgotten funds, to ensure that you reclaim all possible cash owed to you.

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Unclaimed property returned - WOWT
Thousands of Nebraskans have millions of dollars effectively collecting dust in the state’s accounts. State Treasurer Shane Osborn wants to return all of the money to the rightful owners. It’s not every day a politician shows up at your door, rarer …

Judge rules deposit money should go to state (Connecticut Post)
HARTFORD — Beer and soda distributors Thursday will have to turn over $6 million, following a Superior Court ruling Wednesday that unclaimed nickel deposits are the property of the state.

Lost fortune? Or is $87.2 million just unclaimed? - Philiy.com
If it was me, I’d be in a rush to get my money. It’s more than $46 million in cash. Or $87 million-plus spread out in 30 yearly payments. Either way, no time like as soon as possible for getting rich. Am I right? Sure, you take your time to find a …

Pa. Treasury Releases Unclaimed Property List - WJAC TV
Unbeknownst to many state residents, the Pennsylvania State Treasury coffers may have some of their money. Friday, the Treasury Department released the names of people statewide who have money due to them that has never been claimed. The money could …

Idaho Unclaimed Property

admin — Wed, 06 May 2009 01:05:09 +0000

Usually when people think of the state of Idaho, what comes to mind? Potatoes of course. Lots and lots of potatoes. But there is also a huge pile of something else that you might say is “no small potatoes” - Idaho unclaimed money. Idaho’s lost money fund has swollen to a whopping $40 million and counting and all of this cash belongs to residents wise enough to locate it and claim it.

The majority of people find it difficult to believe that average Idaho citizens have somehow just abandoned $40 million, and that Americans across the nation have abandoned almost $40 billion (yes, with a “b”, billion), but believe it or not, the odds that any given person is owed unclaimed property are better than the odds that they are not due a claim. The main reason for this is that these missing monies come from so many different sources. According to the web site of the Idaho State Tax Commission, the dept. charged with handling these assets: “These include stocks, bonds, mutual funds, bank accounts, uncashed payroll checks, utility deposits, traveler’s checks, contents from deposit boxes, and more. Most of the assets are ones that people didn’t know they had or just forgot about, and sometimes they are worth thousands of dollars.”

In order for money to be considered abandoned or “unclaimed”, it has to lie dormant for a period of time that is specific to each type of asset and state. Idaho considers most kinds abandoned after five years of dormancy, though many are available for claiming after only one year.

There are a handful of reasons why assets may go unclaimed, but it’s generally simple as forgetting to leave a forwarding address for financial institutions or previous employers. If a piece of mail is sent back to the sender, and the rightful owner does not contact the sending party within the dormancy period, the holder is required by law to hand the funds over to the state.

The issue Idaho has, as do all other states, is reuniting lost money with its true owners. Despite state awareness efforts and popular media coverage, the majority of people are still just not aware of unclaimed property. Even the few that are in the know generally do not have a clue where to start their search. There are a number of people out there searching, but even those people do not know all the tactics they need to utilize to increase their odds of locating claims.

For the reasons stated above, Idaho is now holding over $40 million in unclaimed property, and that number will almost certainly grow, because more and more money is handed over to the state each year and it outpaces the amounts returned to the citizens. For this reason, it’s extremely important that people who are interested in looking for missing monies, learn how expert finders find these monies, and then put these same tactics in to action in their own attempts. There are right ways to search, and wrong ways to search, and until people learn the difference there are a number of hurdles that can get between them and their money.

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Could the state of Missouri have your money or property? (KSDK St. Louis)
Could the state of Missouri have your money or property?

State Returns Safety Deposit Box Items - KCTV 5
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — From cash to collectibles, if someone has left it behind in a safety deposit box, the state of Missouri has got it. “We found a safety deposit box, and the only thing in it was a ski mask, a gun and a change of clothes …

$14m in unclaimed money - IRD (Stuff)
Over 15,000 people are owed more than $14 million in unclaimed money, the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) says. There were 15,200 people who were owed a total of $14,427,789, IRD customer operations group manager, Heather Daly said.

California Unclaimed Assets and Missing Money

admin — Sun, 03 May 2009 06:05:04 +0000

The state of California’s unclaimed money program takes in about $300 million each year. Why does it matter to you? Well, if you or anyone you know is or was a resident of the Golden State (or ever had any type of business dealings, whether you knew it or not), part of that massive pile of CA forgotten funds could easily be yours!

Under the CA unclaimed property (or escheat) law, abandoned assets like forgotten savings and checking accounts, cash and stock dividends, mineral deposits, uncashed checks and money orders, state of California unclaimed tax refunds, salary checks, gift certificates, and other assets are handed over to the Treasury Department if their owners don’t come for them within a given time period. This ‘dormancy period’ varies widely from state to state, but in CA it is three years. These unclaimed monies then get moved to the CA unclaimed property division, where they stay in the state’s general fund until they are returned to the rightful owners. This is where state employees who handled CA unclaimed cash were criticized recently. Seems that they were eager to track down and take hold of the lost assets from the various establishments holding them but showed less interest in contacting the owners in the CA unclaimed money list.

One of the primary reasons for the government’s inability give back forgotten money to its owners, they say, is that they can not be tracked down. The problem is, would would ever think that people like ZsaZsa Gabor, Angelina Jolie, Victoria Beckham, Gerri Halliwell, Brad Pitt, Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Lopez, Adam Sandler and Marlon Brando would be difficult to track down? Those names and the names of a number of other celebrities are just a few of the names in the CA missing money database but they have not been contacted by the employees at the California Unclaimed Funds Division. They are all owed checks for unclaimed money by CA amounting from hundreds to the thousands in Ms. Jolie’s case. This just shows CA state officials’ interest in keeping this money in the general fund for them to balance the budget deficits for as long as they can. In fact, there was a recent ruling by a judge on CA abandoned cash, saying that the state wasn’t trying hard enough to locate the rightful owners and for a while halted the ability of the state to take and hold it until a new policy of returning it to the actual owners was adopted.

The total dollar amount for these funds in California averages five billion dollars annually - just imagine how much interest this accrues for the state! Sacramento attorney Bill Palmer who has battled in numerous cases involving California unclaimed money, has said that the state’s program was intended to be a lost and found of sorts for Californians. Sadly, it was turned into a profit generating ‘business’ in the past few years.

The ban on the taking of property by California has since been removed and the new California State Controller, John Chiang, is making extra efforts in the form of widespread changes in improving how his office deals with California unclaimed money. There is still a great need though for Californians and Americans in all states across the U.S. to learn about the presence of these properties and on how to do a thorough search for them and take back what belongs to them.

IRD makes list of people owed money - NZCity
Thousands of people could be better off than they thought, because of unclaimed money being held by the taxman. The IRD has released an online list of 15,200 people, all of whom are due a pay-out. Between them they are owed $14,427,789, most of which …

$14m in unclaimed money - IRD - Stuff
Over 15,000 people are owed more than $14 million in unclaimed money, the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) says. There were 15,200 people who were owed a total of $14,427,789, IRD customer operations group manager, Heather Daly said. The names were …

Indiana Unclaimed (Indiana’s NewsCenter)
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (Indiana’s NewsCenter) - Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller was in Fort Wayne today to remind Hoosiers to collect unclaimed funds.

Forgotten Funds: Check For Unclaimed Cash - MSNBC
There may be a check with your name on it, just waiting to be claimed. What could the cash be from? Unclaimed money and property, refund checks that weren’t cashed, money from bank accounts that weren’t closed out properly and items in abandoned …

Is unclaimed cash waiting for you? - ABC Action News
TAMPA BAY, FL — We’re all trying to ring up less at the register and cut back. Wife and mother Dee Carmichael is no different. “Because you never know if you could be the next one that has a spouse that may lose his job,” she said. Mark …

Unclaimed Cash in Wisconsin

admin — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 21:05:04 +0000

WI houses a lot more American goodies than just milk and cheese. The Badger State is also home to Harley Davidson Motorcycles, the Green Bay Packers, and catfish (Potosi, WI). An amusing fact I just picked up about Green Bay that few know about is that it is also the world toilet paper capital. There is another kind of paper that can be found piled up in WI’s Treasury Dept. though - the good-smelling kind, green. Yes, Wisconsin unclaimed money totaling nearly 400 million dollars is in the State Treasurer’s hands and they are looking to reunite it with over one million citizens who are owed their fair share.

Unclaimed property is turned over to the Treasury Office when forgotten funds aren’t given back to their owners after a specified period. The ‘dormancy period’ for WI abandoned funds is five years. Forgotten properties can come from numerous sources - uncashed savings and salary checks, lost or unused gift checks, stock dividends, lost traveler’s checks, forgotten bank accounts, and other financial assets that have been forgotten about and lost track of. The only tangible assets dealt with under the WI Unclaimed Money Law are contents of safety deposit boxes that have been determined to be abandoned. The State Treasury Office attempts to find the owners of family heirlooms, pocket watches, sports cards, coins, jewelry, etc. but ultimately has to auction them off at eBay after three years. “There are a lot of safety deposit boxes that get turned over to us which a lot of people don’t tell their kids, ‘Hey we have a safety deposit box.’ So we actively search for those owners for three years and if we can’t find them we auction off the contents of the boxes. We do that on eBay,” said State Treasurer Dawn Marie Sass.

According to WI’s State Treasurer in a recent interview during a report by the WI Radio Network, they simply run out of space to store all of the unclaimed assets as they keep piling up every year. “We do actively search for people for up to three years and then after that time, because we don’t have a lot of space, we do have these auctions”, she said in a recent report. The earnings from these items are then held by the state like all other abandoned monetary assets and are used by the state until the owners come to claim them. “Until we can find an owner or an heir, yes, we do use the profits to support our office…”, said Sass. These funds from auctioned unclaimed items in WI may still be claimed at any time though. “You know there are people who, you know, may be in the service and are stationed over seas for five, six, seven years and then they come back and realize that their, you know, mother’s safety deposit box was turned over. So, you know, they had no way of knowing that before they came back year, so we always keep the money earmarked for whoever that belonged to, so they never lose out.” Sass adds. The interest earned on these monies helps fund things like WI low-interest loans to municipalities and school libraries.

The State Treasurer has stated that one of the biggest checks for WI unclaimed property handled by her office was in the amount of $750,000. All the more reason that residents ought to do an unclaimed money search and learn if they have some WI ‘cheddar’ being held by the State Treasurer.

$163,828 unclaimed Excellus BlueCross BlueShield funds in Rochester … - WHEC TV-10
More than 4,200 individuals and companies in New York State have forgotten about $589,521 in checks issued by Excellus Health Plan, including by its d.b.a., Excellus BlueCross BlueShield (BCBS). Of that total, more than $163,828 has not been claimed …

Pontotoc County to refund unclaimed bond money - Ada Evening News
The Pontotoc County Court Clerk’s Office has unclaimed bond money and may have refunds for the following individuals: Carol Cox, B.J. Hoskins, Dustin Buret, Ken Garrett, Daniel Scott, Don Barnett, Christopher Farriss, Justin Sipes, Scott Johnson …

Do you have money coming to you? - Myfoxorl and O
SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35) - You may have some money coming to you and you don’t even know it. There are many forms of unclaimed property and in this economy getting your hands on what’s rightfully yours could be a big help. Omayra Rosario …

Unclaimed Property in Michigan

admin — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 01:05:07 +0000

Michigan is home to a lot of pop culture icons - Madonna (from Bay City), the ‘Motown’ music label, Eminem, Diana Ross (from Detroit), Bob Seger, Stevie Wonder… the list of famous musicians goes on and on. It is also home to the automobile capital of the world Detroit, affectionately known to residents as Motor City (which is where the term ‘Motown’ comes from) and Battle Creek, MI - ‘The World’s Cereal Bowl’ which is home to the Kellogg’s company. Certainly, many assets essential to American culture have come from ‘The Great Lakes State’. There are less known assets in Mich. that even most residents don’t know about though - hundreds of millions of dollars in Michigan unclaimed money! This money is just sitting-around in the Mich. Unclaimed Funds Dept. instead of where it belongs, in the pockets of the owners of the lost assets.

According to the State Treasury Dept., “The Michigan Department of Treasury has millions of dollars in lost or forgotten assets from dormant bank accounts, uncashed checks, valuables left in safe deposit boxes and stock certificates. Because these properties were considered abandoned and unclaimed by the bank or company entrusted with them, they are turned over to the state, as required by law. The Michigan Department of Treasury is the custodian of these assets and returns them to their owners (or the owners’ heirs) when they are rightfully claimed.”

The citizens who are owed Mich. unclaimed properties may have forgotten about their money when moving to another city or finding new employment. This is very common in the fast-paced lifestyle we’re all living now, and not remembering to leave behind things like a forwarding address is very easy to do. Because of this, mailed checks and notices often don’t reach the addressees and must be returned to the sender (like businesses and financial institutions or the IRS), where they must stay until the ‘dormancy period’ has gone by, and law dictates that these properties be turned over to the state. In Mich. this period is 5 years for most kinds of unclaimed funds.

All Michiganers and former residents of Mich. should perform a search for unclaimed property in Mich. - with hundreds of millions of dollars waiting to be found, the odds are great that they might be owed money. It is rather surprising whose names have come up on the missing money list. Domino’s Pizza founder Thomas Monaghan, Aretha Franklin, and even Eminem’s names have come up on the Mich. unclaimed funds owners database.

Sense it is a ‘custodial state’, there is no time limit for Mich. unclaimed funds to be claimed by its owners. In a report on Mich. unclaimed cash by ABC’s WZZM 13, the Mich. Treasury Department’s Gonzalo Llano said “The funds stay here forever until they are claimed by either the property owner or their heirs should the property owner be deceased,” But don’t you feel like the lost money would be more comfortable snug in their owners’ pockets than collecting dust in some cold, dingy State office? Educate yourself on how you can begin an exhaustive search, and locate all possible Mich. unclaimed property owed to you ASAP!

$1 billion a day for stimulus - CNN Money
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The federal government has made available more than $75 billion for stimulus projects in the 10 weeks since President Obama signed the $787 billion recovery package into law. Not all of that money has hit the streets …

Making sense of the Bigger (yes) Better (?) Bottle Bill - Syracuse Post-Standard
Mike Greenlar / The Post-Standard A warehouse employee at Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Syracuse moves product into the pick area for truck delivery. Coca-Cola says the New York State Bigger Better Bottle Bill could force layoffs at the company. The …

Check For Unclaimed Funds Online (NBC Washington)
Are you owed some money from a local jurisdiction? Check for unclaimed funds online. Presented By: Waking the Baby Mammoth: Sunday at 9p On the frozen plains of the Siberian tundra, a reindeer herder chances upon a 40,000 year old baby mammoth – the most perfectly preserved mammoth ever found. On Sunday, witness the mammoth’s unveiling to the world, as scientists reveal her incredible story. …

Need money? You may have some coming (The Shawano Leader)
You may have money you didn’t even know about. Do you want to know how to retrieve it? The Office of the State Treasurer is printing names of people who have unclaimed funds in Wisconsin for 2008.

Unclaimed Funds in Illinois

admin — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 22:05:04 +0000

In May 2007, Illinois State Treasurer State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias announced that the state’s “Cash Dash” abandoned asset program is holding roughly $1.4 Billion in Illinois unclaimed money. The only thing standing between the cash and its rightful owners is the knowledge that it’s out there and the knowledge to track it down.

Sadly beyond just Illinois, state treasury departments across the country continue to take in more unclaimed property each year than they return to the citizens. Because everyone believes in the old “if it’s too good to be true” saying, the majority of people do not believe that there are really tens of billions of dollars waiting to be claimed across the country. Even for those few who have learned the truth about unclaimed assets, the best way to track these monies down eludes them most of the time.

The Prairie is State is one of only a few states that is holding over 1 billion dollars on its own, which means if you are a resident of Illinois then you have even greater odds of tracking down a claim in your name, especially when you consider that the state has less than 13 million people and there are more than 10 million names on the state’s Illinois database.

Although there are many more, Illinois lists the following as the most common types of missing money: abandoned savings and checking accounts, unpaid wages or commissions, stock, bonds, mutual funds, un-cashed dividends, customer deposits or overpayments, credit balances, refunds, money orders, travelers checks, paid-up life insurance policies, safe deposit box contents. People who have had or know someone who may have had one of these types of accounts at some point in the past is encouraged to search regularly.

The Illinois State Treasury has handed back over 432 million dollars since it took control of the unclaimed property program in 1999, 84 million dollars of which was returned in 2006 alone, but with $1.4 Billion waiting to be claimed and more coming in all the time, the heap of cash will continue to grow.

Because money is constantly added to the fund, it’s very important to check regularly, not just one time. Money belonging to you might be added tomorrow, or next week, or next month, or depending on the type of asset in five years if that is the proper dormancy period. Each kind of property has its own dormancy period in each state, after which state laws require the holder to hand it over to the state who will then hold on to it until the true owner steps forward to claim it.

Further, residents of Illinois may be owed unclaimed property in other states even if they’ve never resided in or even passed through them. Items like insurance overpayments when an employer uses an out of state insurance company can result in found money located in other states. Issues often also arise when corporations are incorporated in another state.

The bottom line is that the state of Illinois is currently holding a massive amount of cash that is owed to its residents who just need to learn the correct ways to search, where to search, and how often to search. Learning these search tips from experienced funds locators in this field can greatly enhance your abilities to find your money.

One-half of Lotto’s P347-M jackpot prize still unclaimed (The Daily Tribune)
Yesterday, April 23, marked the second month after the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) drew the biggest jackpot prize in nine-year history of local lotto drawing the winning six-number combination which paid a record P347-million prize.

$130,000 Lottery ticket unclaimed - Woodland Daily Democrat
The California Lottery is still on the lookout for a player who purchased a winning MEGA Millions ticket in Woodland one month ago and has yet to claim their prize. The ticket hit five of six winning numbers in the March 20 drawing, missing only the …

AZ homeless shelters get $771K - Arizona Daily Star
PHOENIX — Gov. Jan Brewer announced $771,000 in state grants to homeless shelters Thursday, with $50,000 going to help Pima County residents. The grants were provided through the Arizona Housing Trust Fund — a pot of money derived from the state …

Leave money behind, attend Really Really Free Market - Des Moines Register
A nonprofit Des Moines group is planning a public marketplace that offers goods and services that are free. Really, free. No money will be exchanged for the goods and services available - and nothing will have a price tag - at the Really Really Free …

Washington Unclaimed Property

admin — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 21:05:05 +0000

The state of WA has spawned some of the world wide web’s biggest names. Even Bill Gates, the United States’ richest man, hails from Medina, WA and his company, Microsoft, is based in Redmond. Amazon.com, Classmates.com, Whitepages.com and Marchex also make WA their home. The fact then that more than one and a half million residents are owed more than 700 million dollars in unclaimed money in WA State is ironic, sense searching for unclaimed property and money can be done on the web from the comfort of their bedroom or the local Starbucks.

According to the WA State Dept. Of Revenue web site, typical unclaimed money includes abandoned insurance proceeds, bank accounts, bonds, stocks, safe deposit box contents, mutual funds, uncashed payroll, utility and phone company deposits, traveler’s checks, insurance, and other financial assets. Unclaimed property doesn’t include most tangible assets such as vehicles and real estate. State Law requires insurance companies, banks, credit unions, government entities, retailers, corporations, and utilities to turn WA unclaimed property and money over to the state if their owners can not be located after three to five years (depending on the item). The State’s Unclaimed Property Law states: “State law protects unclaimed property until it can be returned. There is no time limit for filing a claim and rightful owners or their heirs can claim property reported since 1955. The state may auction the content of safe deposit boxes, however, if not claimed within five years.”

WA was the very first state to have a streamlined system for claiming lost property and money. As a matter of fact, the WA State Dept. of Revenue recently received the Award for Outstanding Management and Organizational Initiative for its ‘Unclaimed Property E-Claim System’. The amount waiting to be reunited with their owners still exceeds 500 million dollars however, despite the unclaimed money program being implemented to seek out more owners of WA unclaimed money and that makes claiming easier for them.

The problem may lie in a handful of factors - the fast paced lifestyle we live in today, the idea people have that piles of paperwork are necessary when dealing with the government, and plain disbelief. The more people jump from spouse to spouse (changing last names), jump from job to job, change addresses, the more likely they are going to lose track of some of their financial assets like inheritances from a relative that had passed away or tax refunds from the IRS. Even people who are aware of the possibility that they could have unclaimed money in WA and other states might not bother performing a search at all thinking it’s not worth the effort.

The Unclaimed Property Division collects more than 55 million dollars in lost or abandoned assets each year in WA State and that amount snowballs with each passing year. Study up on all the various ways to search, how often to search, and where to search and get started finding money you could have coming ASAP! Who knows? For once, the government could owe you money this time instead of the other way around.

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Official faces inquiry over unclaimed cash - This is Sentinel
A SENIOR council official is facing investigation as part of a probe into why a claim for a £1.2 million rebate was delayed for two years. Alan Hudson, Newcastle Borough Council ’s executive director of operational services, has been named by …

Lost money discovered during Randolph event - Southern Illinoisan
The state treasurer’s office has begun claims and inquiries that could return more than $60,000 in unclaimed money and property to 47 Randolph County residents. The process began April 14 during the state treasurer’s Cash Dash outreach event at the …

Unclaimed Money in Alabama

admin — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 12:05:06 +0000

I was searching the internet recently for the latest news and an article on modern day treasure hunters caught my eye. It appears that for some Americans who have metal detectors, looking for treasure in the FL Keys has turned in to more than a hobby and has made some serious money. Rusted antiques and occasionally gold and silver bullion from sunken Spanish galleons are just some of the finds. Very interesting news.

Burried treasures aren’t the only riches available for citizens hoping to go on a hunt for treasure though. After reading the article on treasure hunting scuba divers, I saw another news post about Alabama unclaimed money, stating that the state treasurer has recently given away as much as $23 million of it to the state’s residents in just one year’s time. Well really, the phrase ‘given away’ is kind of not accurate - ‘given back’ is the better verb to use as the Ala. missing money actually belonged to the people that received it in the first place. The large value of these assets given back may be due to the State Treasurer’s Unclaimed Money Program that attempts to heighten the awareness of residents about abandoned cash. Lists of the names of the owners of these funds are placed in public places like state fairs and shopping malls. Booths are also set up by employees of the Ala. Treasury Department’s Unclaimed Money Div. in these public places - providing free help in doing an Ala. search.

When residents relocate or find new jobs, they often lost track of assets such as stock dividends, uncollected salary checks, income tax refunds, etc. by not leaving a proper forwarding address. People also pass away without leaving a will and their assets are supposed to be given to their closest living relative who sometimes can’t be located due to a change of address or name. Items from contents of forgotten safe deposit boxes are also deemed unclaimed property under Ala. law. These items are passed along to the state after a ‘dormancy period’, which varies state to state. The dormancy period for unclaimed property in Ala. is five years for most types of financial assets and 1 year for salary checks. Items forgotten in safe deposit boxes are passed along to the state and are auctioned off to the public and the money is returned to the state treasurer’s office where it can still be claimed by the true owners at any time in the future.

According to Kay Ivey, Alabama State Treasurer, “We’ve still got $373 million that belongs to people in every nook and cranny in Alabama,” and she adds “Go online or call us, and if you find your name and you can prove you are who you say you are, my staff and I would love to send you a check.”

According to experts 70% of Americans are due a portion of the more than 35 billion dollars in unclaimed property, which is currently held by the individual Treasury Departments across the country in all 50 states. A citizen can have abandoned assets in several states if he or she has relocated a lot or if they have several relatives across the country. It’s important to do a thorough money search to keep from missing out on your lost cash.

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Government Might Owe You Money - KNx 1070
LOS ANGELES (KNX 1070 NEWSRADIO) — Congressman Brad Sherman has a link to a government list of unclaimed stimulus checks. CLICK BELOW To see if you are on the list of Los Angeles County residents who are owed tax money

$130,000 Lottery ticket unclaimed (The Daily Democrat)
The California Lottery is still on the lookout for a player who purchased a winning MEGA Millions ticket in Woodland one month ago and has yet to claim their prize.The ticket hit five of six winning numbers in the March 20 drawing, missing only the Mega number, and is worth $130,151.

Florida has $28M for child support, can’t find recipients (Orlando Sentinel)
Florida is sitting on that much money for child support but can’t find recipients At a time when Florida families increasingly struggle to pay bills, the state is sitting on $28 million in child-support payments that it has not distributed — largely because it can’t find the parents who are owed the money.

Talk About Travel: Great Smoky Mountains, Dublin, More (Washington Post)
Post travel editors and writers field questions and comments.