Unclaimed Property Blog

It was not long ago that U.S. residents found the concept of unclaimed money too unrealistic to pay any attention. The legion of unclaimed money owners have forced a transformation in their views. Millions of unclaimed money is being identified, registered, and claimed every day in the country. The authorities at both the central and state levels have left no stone unturned in their quest to reunite the rightful owners of these funds. These huge piles of unclaimed monies are lying somewhere in the state treasuries. Every possible mechanism has been utilized by the state treasuries to return back the unclaimed money to the recipients.

As of a last estimate, “The North Carolina Department of State Treasurer holds nearly $600 million in unclaimed property”. This roughly translates into one in eight North Carolinians have unclaimed money lying with the state treasury.

In the past year, over $39 million in unclaimed property has been returned. Like most of the other states, North Carolina’s unclaimed property consists of bank accounts, wages, utility deposits, insurance policy proceeds, stocks, bonds, and contents of safe deposit boxes that typically have been abandoned for one to five years.

According to the State Constitution, the interest earnings on the fund go to needy and worthy North Carolina public university and community college students.

New York has the unenviable reputation of having the fastest rising pile of unclaimed money out of all the states in the country. The unclaimed property list continues to grow at an alarming rate in New York. Almost $25 million inactive bank, business, and government accounts all contribute towards this million dollar unclaimed property amount. While the state treasury is taking all the relevant steps to locate the owners of unclaimed funds, the success rate has still not reached a satisfactory level.

With unclaimed assets increasing by the day, it would not be surprising that your ancestral unclaimed assets might be more than you can imagine. Like bonds, trust funds and estates, inheritance money can also be lost because of so many reasons. Ancestral inheritance money can be because of a variety of reasons:

A deceased relative left no written will
Your relative switched funds over to another bank
Multiple address changes were done before your dear ones left this world
A contested estate was left behind or a life insurance policy that was never cashed in

Ebay has become the latest place for unclaimed assets to be found and purchased. Unclaimed items from across the globe can be found at Ebay at amazingly cheap prices. Items ranging from abandoned safety deposit boxes and police confiscated items are being auctioned to the highest bidder on Ebay.

Some of the most common unclaimed property on Ebay are from Safety deposit boxes. By law, any safety deposit box which has not been claimed for 3 years (in most of the states), is turned over to the state’s unclaimed property division. At this point of time state may decide to auction the items of the deposit box.

With the rise of unclaimed property, local police stations have taken measures to decrease the amounts. police auctions are often considered a great place for a great deal. Most of these auctions are held to dispose of vehicles and surplus/obsolete equipment.

They are also held for such things as recovered items, unclaimed or stolen goods, seized items and much more. Some of the other sought after items from the police department auctions are cars, communication equipment, cameras, and more. Everything that is auctioned through the Police department is in a good shape and well maintained due to strict maintenance schedules.

Recently, it was discovered that the internal revenue service (IRS) had a huge pile of unclaimed state money in the form of IRS unclaimed tax money lying in its vaults. The total worth of IRS unclaimed money is estimated to be around $70 million in the form of income tax refunds, and these are now bracketed under unclaimed state money. This figure is the average for a single year and the figure might go up.

Unclaimed gift cards have become a new source of unclaimed money in America. Here are some gift card related statistics that intends to reveal the gift card circulation in America and the volume of unclaimed gift cards that are in the unclaimed money pool: