Unclaimed Property Blog

Pull out your telephone bill and take a look near the bottom of the bill. Buried in the bill under the label “access fee” or “federal line charge” is an excise tax you pay to the government each month. Read on to find out more about this fee and the controversy it is causing.

Currently as written or noted on your telephone bills the 3 percent tax on long-distance calls seems like a typical service charge. Further research has found it is actually an outdated war tax that was passed in 1898 to help pay for the Spanish-American war.

There are some things we do others don’t know about and should be left that way. What about your financial records? There may be a need for someone to know how to access your accounts. Time to think this matter over.

The idea of gathering your key personal and financial documents and information into one place may seem disastrous. Then storing this sensitive data on the internet may send shivers up an down your spine. But not having a remote, off-site backup of your important documents is what should really scare you.

Beverly Hills is the site for the annual auction of valuable unclaimed property.

You may or may not be aware of unclaimed property auctions. The state receives unclaimed property from banks and businesses which it documents and holds onto. Attempts are made to find the rightful owners, but sometimes this is not achieved. In such cases there does come a time when that property will be sold at auction.

The auction is to be held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Beverly Hills, 1150 South Beverly Drive. The two-day event is on May 25 and 26 at 9 a.m. Preview times are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on May 23 and 24.

There is a recent report of someone in Canada trying to bilk money form U.S. citizens.

Police in New Jersey are asking the public to be aware of a check scam involving a Canadian company called Capital Trust. A 49-year-old resident recently reported he lost money after following instructions sent to him by the group.

He had received some mail from Capital Trust in Waterloo, Ontario, containing a cashier’s check from Bank One made out to him in the amount of $3,900, along with a one-page letter of explanation.

The current manner in which CA holds unclaimed property may have a change. A bill has been introduced regarding unclaimed money and property.

There are billions of dollars worth of property unclaimed by Californians. Some officials want the state to be more aggressive about finding the owners.

Under California law the state is the recipient of an abandoned safe deposit boxes and bank accounts after three years on inactivity and when the bank cannot locate the owner, the contents and money go to the state. For unclaimed wages and salaries the time limit is one year.

Gary Kent Jones did not receive the letters of notification of the sale of his property. He found out the house was for sale once it was sold. Could this happen to you or someone you know?

It was determined by the U. S. Supreme Court with a vote of 5-3 that Arkansas’ land commissioner should have done more to try to notify a homeowner that his house was to be sold. The reason for the sale is that he did not pay the property tax.

Having your identity stolen can be unnerving. What if you know the person? This brings up many questions on who to trust.

Identity theft experts have discovered a small but growing proportion of identity fraud is perpetrated by parents. Some victimize children who are old enough to establish credit in their own right. Others use the Social Security numbers of their minor children to set up fraudulent accounts that the victims might not discover for years.

Two years ago you almost never heard about parent perpetrators . Now Linda Foley, founder of the Identity Theft Resource Center, gets “several complaints a week� from victims or from other adults who have uncovered the crimes.

It could be good news, if you know ahead of time or it could be bad news, if you end up stranded.

Your credit card company may be one that monitors your spending habits. Then you take a trip somewhere out of your ordinary route. The vacation of a lifetime could become a nightmare.

You want to pay for a purchase using your credit card and it is denied. You only have this credit card with you. You try to call the 800 number, this does not go through because you are now in a foreign country where the 800 number is invalid.

Not all employers are accepting older applicants for the jobs that need filing. This makes it harder for those seeking employment. Read on for some ideas on how you could increase your chances of employment.

Managers and professionals in their 50s who get downsized out of a job increasingly don’t opt for early retirement. Most cannot afford to stop working. Some want to continue working because they want the camaraderie and stimulation of a job.

We all hear of the many ways that credit card debt can be paid. Yet, Americans continue to increase their credit card debt.

There are numerous reasons that the nation’s credit card debt continues growing. This is not about how it is increasing, but how you can decrease your personal credit card debt in some very simple ways.

To eliminate credit card debt as rapidly as possible at the lowest possible cost to you, follow these steps:

1. Make a list all of your credit cards. Once this is done, next to each card note the balance and the interest rate.