Unclaimed Property Blog

There are about 3,000 veterans statewide who are owed unclaimed property. The state recently began sending letters to the veterans that are owed their share.

Where is this money from? Cash, securities, escheated estates (those given to the state when no heirs exist) and contents of abandoned safe deposit boxes are regularly turned over to the Office of the State Treasurer. The treasurer’s office then attempts to find the owners. It publishes unclaimed property lists and it maintains a searchable database of unclaimed property online. But many people still never realize they have anything coming to them.

Scattered throughout the Boston, MA region are hundreds of lucky people who are eligible to claim at least $10,000 each.

The government says it wants to return the money, but the owner of record has been deemed unreachable, with no known address. The Globe South did manage to find some of these lucky people.

The state treasurer’s office has 1.5 million unclaimed bank accounts, bonds, insurance policies and safe deposit boxes with a total worth of about $1.8 billion. Dig deep into your memory and if you feel you may be someone that fits into having an account as mentioned, claim it, it is free money.

It is the duty of Texas Controller Carole Keeton Strayhorn to locate the owners of $1.3 billion the state is holding in unclaimed assets.

Sometimes when you see a coin on the ground you pick it up. But if you take the time to look up your name on a particular website, www.CashUnclaimed.com, you could find a whole lot more than a single cent.

Right now more than 100,000 Texans have money being held for them by the state because for whatever reason they couldn’t be found to get the check. But claiming the money now is as easy as jumping on a computer and spending five minutes of your time.

Millions of Californians have made hefty contributions of cash, stocks and personal property to state coffers without knowing it. The reason behind this is that lawmakers have been pilfering from the state’s unclaimed-property cache and using the proceeds to help balance the budget.

Approximately $896 million in unclaimed property was turned over to the state for safekeeping last year under a 46-year-old program designed to protect forgotten or abandoned assets. Less than $239 million of that was eventually claimed; most of the rest went into the state’s general fund.

About $920,000 in tax refunds are due to residents in Utah. It is the goal of IRS Comminssioner Mark W. Everson to get this money back into the hands of the people it belongs to.

According to information provided by the IRS, refunds can go astray for a number of reasons, but they usually are lost when a taxpayer moves or changes address and doesn’t notify the IRS or the U.S. Postal Service. Utah taxpayers who have moved since filing their last tax return are those that should look into this free money give-a-way.

This week, the Montana Department of Revenue spent almost $10,000 to place 8,824 names in legal advertisements in daily newspapers across the state to contact the money’s owners.

Under a program set up by Montana law in 1963, unclaimed or abandoned money eventually gets turned over to the state. The state will hold it in trust for perpetuity.

To date, the state of Montana has collected about $47 million, and $16 million has been returned.

Check your family tree, a long-gone distant relative might be on this list. If you can provide proof of heritage, you could become richer.

The state of New Hampshire is looking for the owners of unclaimed cash and stocks. The amounts are $7.9 million in cash and 300,000 shares of stock.

Insurance Companies that converted from a mutual company have stock that was not given to the owners of the insurance policy. Some of the named companies are John Hancock Financial Services, Inc., MetLife Inc., Prudential Financial Inc., and Nationwide Provident.

Per the article the state’s portfolio of abandoned stock is worth more that $20 million. You could be owed money from these conversions. How much found money do you want to find? Search the Found Money search and find out.

People were waiting in line to see if they were due money from the state of Califorina. It resulted in CA State Controller Steve Westly distrubuting 5 checks totalling $8,000 in the Fresno area. This is part of his statewide campaign to give $4.8 billion in unclaimed property back to rightful owners.

You may be a rightful owner and claim your share of the $4.8 billion.

Two months ago, the county of San Diego offered more than $1 million in refunds to hotel and motel guests who were overtaxed for their rooms. The actual amount of overcharging is over $4 million dollars, but the time limits are up on claiming some of those funds and the county is now spending much of the money.

Now, the county is attempting to return nearly $2.4 million dollars in unclaimed funds that resulted from people overpaying their property taxes.

Free money – do you want it? You would think that most people would jump at the chance. However, Three business school professors have discovered that when it comes to work most people are leaving hundreds or thousands of free dollars left on the table.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is reporting that in their study, called: “$100 Bills on the Sidewalk: Suboptimal Savings in 401(k) Plans.”, most people are not taking advantage of investment fund matching programs. This is where the employer will match any contribution you make to an investment account like a 401K retirement account.