Finding Unclaimed Property in Texas

Texas has over $2.5 billion in unclaimed property and money. And you can do a free search on their website to see if you have anything coming to you. Here are some of the property that you can look to see if you or your forefathers accidently left behind: You may have unclaimed property if you ever:

• Had a bank account, safe deposit box, trust fund or escrow account 
• Received dividend, payroll or cashier’s checks 
• Made court deposits Had mineral interests or royalty payments 
• Overpaid on insurance, utility or other bills Received rebates on purchases, such as a cell phone or computer 
• Held stocks, bonds or mutual funds 
• Made utility deposits

5% of Minnesotans Have over $100 of unclaimed money

Page Title - No value Fox has learned that 5% of Minnesotans are owed over $100. And they hit the streets try to find people... And sure enough the 8th person they asked (a local waitress) found out that she had some cash owed to her from an old employer.

Do I have Unclaimed Money?

If you're wondering,"Do I have unclaimed money?" WLBT in Mississippi shows how the state treasurer has helped distribute $5 million in unclaimed funds to its rightful owners in just the last year. It's simple enough to do a last name search on the online database and fill out paperwork with the proper government agencies---in time, you may find your self a little-bit or a lot richer.

Florida Treasure Hunt - Search for Unclaimed Money

The Florida Treasure Hunt helps Floridians locate lost and unclaimed money.  Anybody can conduct a free internet search for missing cash at the Treasurer's website.

Currently, the Chief Financial Officer of Florida holds unclaimed property accounts valued at more than $1 billion, mostly from dormant accounts in financial institutions, insurance and utility companies, securities and trust holdings. In addition to money and securities, unclaimed property includes tangible property such as watches, jewelry, coins, currency, stamps, historical items and other miscellaneous articles from abandoned safe deposit boxes. Unclaimed money is deposited into the state school fund, where it is used for public education. There is, however, no statute of limitations, and citizens have the right to claim their property any time at no cost.

If you have questions regarding how the FL treasure hunt works, you can reference the state's Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page...  Where you can find how long the process takes?  What forms are required? and What happens if you moved out-of-state?

It's also important to note that you can search on the website to see if any deceased/dead relatives have any unclaimed assets that may rightfully become the property of their estate (and eventually you).

Oklahoma's Missing Money Program

Oklahoma's Missing Money department which is run by the state treasurer has over $350 million of cash waiting be claimed.

Oprah Helps People Find Unclaimed Money

In this old video clip, Oprah says that 9 out of 10 people may have unclaimed assets waiting for them. She helps to explain how viewers can go and search for their missing money online.

Illinois Cash Dash has over $1.5 billion

Illinois State Treasurer Rutherford says that the people in the land of Lincoln are owed over $1.5 billion in unclaimed assets.

Citizens may have forgotten about bank accounts, utility deposits or stock certificates that are eventually turned over to the state if their accounts stay idle for too long. Additionally, if family members pass away without a good accounting of their assets and money, valuables, cash and life insurance policies as well as safe deposit boxes get turned over to the State of Illinois and is just sitting there waiting for the heirs to contact Rutherford's office to file the correct paperwork and to be issued their checks for the missing money.

If you live in Chicago or else where in IL you can search for unclaimed money at the treasurer's website.

What sites help me search for lost assets?

Where can I find web sites to help find lost assets, this video clip lets you know how you can find your state treasurer's "treasure hunt" site; or use other government websites to find unclaimed pensions or lost stock certificates.

The old-days of mailing off letters to multiple states are over... Now everyone can search for missing money owed to them, their family or their dead relatives very easily from a host of free websites. Some experts even estimate that 1 in 8 Americans have cash that's owed to them and that is currently sitting in government bank accounts waiting to be claimed.

New York's Office of Unclaimed Funds is sitting on $10.5 billion

According to New York's state comptroller Thomas DiNapoli the empire state is currently sitting on over $10 billion of unclaimed assets waiting to be claimed. More than 25 million accounts have been turned over to the state. During the last fiscal year, over $650 million was turned over and only $227 million was returned to 360,000 New Yorkers.

things like inactive bank or investment accounts. Some of this money could be yours. See how easy it is to search for lost money by watching this tutorial. And it's important to note that while there is NO fee to claim your money; some "finder firms" are legally allowed to collect up to 15% of the funds if you agree to let them help you find your long lost cash.



Some other statistics concerning the assets that were returned to people are that 40% of all returns were less than $50 and 60% of funds returned were for less than $100. But many things worth thousands of dollars were also returned. In fact the largest single claim ever paid was $4 million.

Ohio's Division of Unclaimed Funds gave out $55 million

During the fiscal year ending June 30, 2010 the state of Ohio's division of Unclaimed Funds manged to find 41,992 people who filed just claims to have over $55 million returned to them from the state's coffers in Columbus. That's an average of over $1,300 per claim! Not too shabby---But during the same amount of time banks and other financial institutions escheated more than $167 million to the state... So that means that the state will be able to use those resources until the residents or heirs search the web to lay claim to what is rightfully theirs.

Ohio's treasure hunt allows for you to search for lost funds by first and last name or by business name. With tough times, it's simple to see if you or your family are missing any money.

Indiana has over $380 million of Unclaimed Cash waiting to be found

Indiana's government is hopeing that people who lost over $380 million manage to search out their funds and collect them. The state attorney general says that people all over the state--Fort Wayne, South Bend, Indianapolis, and Munster-- have had old bank accounts, stock certificates, rental deposits and more escheated over to the state and it's just a matter of conducting a quick online search, filling out some paper-work, waiting and depositing the state check into your checking account.

Let me know how it works for you.

--Tom

California's State Treasurer's comments Unclaimed Money in the State

California's State treasurer made the following statement regarding the process of reuniting people with their missing and unclaimed money in Cali:

Fellow Californians:

Since taking office in 2007, returning property to their rightful owners has been one of my top priorities, so I wanted to share with you the significant improvements that my office has made to the program in the last three years:

Notifying Owners Before Their Property Is Sent To The State: For two decades, misguided state laws restricted the State Controller's Office from contacting the owners of more than 80% of all unclaimed property accounts sent to the State. In August 2007, the Legislature passed and the Governor signed legislation I sponsored that allows the State Controller to send property owners notices before their property is transferred to the State. In Fiscal Year 2007-08, those notices resulted in 225,752 properties being claimed before they were even sent to the State. From January 2007 through the end of 2009, my office sent out 3.17 million notices -- 1.27 million warning owners their property was about to be sent to the State, and another 1.89 million notifying owners their property had been sent to State.

Established A Locator Unit: We re-established a unit that aggressively finds and tracks down owners to reunite them with their property. Our priority is to notify owners who had never received a notice due to the previous restrictions on our ability to notify owners.

Upgraded The Claims Processing System: The new database system allows staff to more easily search for properties and process claims more efficiently. We also have begun posting properties to our unclaimed property search page on the Internet within weeks after they are reported by businesses transferring the property, rather than taking a year before posting the properties.

In just the first year after these reforms, we were able to send out 2.5 million notices; more than double the 1.2 million notices we sent during the past decade.

Last year, I successfully sponsored legislation to protect owners by prohibiting financial institutions from sending the contents of "abandoned" safe deposit boxes to the State if the owner has other active accounts. It also prohibits the transfer of other “inactive” accounts if the owner has an active IRA. Finally, the bill requires businesses seeking to avoid liability for wrongly sending property to the State, to prove they sent due diligence notices informing owners that their property was about to be sent to the State. This provision gives property owners an important legal remedy against the business should they suffer a loss due to the business' failure to properly notify the owner.

I want Californians to know that I am putting them first. I realize there is much more work to do, and I will continue to improve the State's ability to put property back in the rightful owners' hands.

Reforms I Am Pursuing:

• Restore interest paid on claims.
• Impose strict penalties on banks, utility companies, and other businesses that fail to comply with the law and notify their customers of unclaimed property they are holding.
• Allow the State to keep property deemed as having no commercial value for seven years, instead of the current 18 months, which would provide more time for owners to claim family heirlooms, photos, and other items that may have special value to them.

I will continue to pursue reforms to the Unclaimed Property Program and invite your suggestions and support along the way. My intent is to restore the public's confidence that their lost property will be safeguarded by the State until property owners can claim what is rightfully theirs.

Sincerely,

JOHN CHIANG
California State Controller

Do finder firms help people locate missing money?

WCPO's local news reporter comments on how a woman whose mother passed away found out that after the estate was settled that her Mom had $4,000 of unclaimed money. Even though a professional finder firm contacted her about how they could help connect her to the missing cash, she determined that she could search for the assets herself online and thereby not pay the company the commission.

So if you're interested in learning about finding money yourself, checkout this short news video clip and maybe you'll be able to earn a little bit of cash that you didn't even know that you were entitled to... And it is advisable to search for family members alive and dead as well to see could be coming to you.

Florida's Treasurer Sink Helps People find Unclaimed Assets

Florida's CFO Alex Sink explains that in 2009 the sunshine state gave back more than $200 million in unclaimed money to the rightful owners (which was another state record)... This year, the bureau has received record amounts---More than $350 million added representing over 1.3 million accounts.

During Sink's term more than $600 million has been returned by the Florida unclaimed property bureau. The pan-handle has recently received special attention; by sending out over 6,000 post-cards in an active outreach program.

Florida's unclaimed property auction will be at the Florida Hotel at the Florida Mall in Orland later this year on Friday the twentieth. The public can view the items before the auction and include jewelery, watches and coins.

Treasurer Sink wants people to search fltreasurehunt.org and people should try and search under all names (including aliases, maiden names, and deceased family member names).

Best of luck finding your moolah at Florida's online search tool

Tennessee's state treasurer explains how to find unclaimed money in the Volunteer State

Tennessee's state treasurer David H. Lillard provides an explaination about how the state's unclaimed assets department works.

"Welcome to the Tennessee property department. The TN unclaimed property department collects tangible and intangible property; stocks and bonds and money and credits for all the good people of Tennessee. It is a consumer protection law function that is intended to keep and preserve the money for the person's use. And we make an attempt to locate the person who is the correct owner of the property. And we catalog it and enter it in the website; and we attempt to locate those people. It never ceases to be the claimant's property. Under Tennessee law it is always their property and it's our job to make available to them and let them claim it in the future or for it to be there for their heirs or their successors."

Ohio woman finds $1,200 of missing money

After a Channel 5 WLWT report, a local Cincinnati woman conducted an online search using her deceased mother's name, and found an account that had been closed in the 1950's and managed to accumulate all the way up to $1,200 dollars.

After doing the search, and filing the appropriate forms, Patty Cordrey and her sister were sent a check from the Ohio treasurer based in Columbus, OH.

NBC finds Illinois Man who had a million dollars of unclaimed funds

NBC's "You Might Be Rich" trekked to Illinois to track down Bill to tell him that he has some missing money. Peter Alexander flew to Southern Illinois to meet up with the Illinois Treasurer (Alexi Giannoulias) to meet him at an abandoned Country Store / gas station to claim his money.

Bill drove up in an old Buick, and guessed that he may have been owed $50,000 - $60,000 but he never bothered to claim the money---because 'he knew it was there'

The single 72 year old was a retired farmer and found out that the State of IL was sitting on $1,046,585.92 ... That's right, this old guy had more than a million dollars waiting for him---It turns out he had some stock that got escheeted to the state. Fortunately, the state sold the stock before the recent market crash so Bill got his check for seven-figures.

Find Unclaimed Money in California

The California State Controller John Chiang recently has announced that the state is in possession of $5.7 billion of assets from over 11.6 million individuals and organizations that has gone unclaimed for years.

Per state law, California businesses must turn-over to the state controller assets once there have been no contact with the rightful owner for over 3 years---In some cases, the owner died and the heirs have no idea about the asset---So you should also search under the names of deceased loved ones.

The most common types of Unclaimed Property in California are:

• Bank accounts and safe deposit box contents
• Stocks, mutual funds, bonds, and dividends
• Uncashed cashier's checks or money orders
• Certificates of deposit
• Matured or terminated insurance policies
• Estates
• Mineral interests and royalty payments, trust funds, and escrow accounts.

Clark Howard explains how to Find Savings Bonds

The famous radio show host Clark Howard, who helps people save more, spend less and avoid getting ripped off recently appeared on CNN and tells people that there are over $17 billion of US Savings Bonds that have not been redeemed and are no longer earning interest. So people are essentially giving the government interest free loans.

You can see the Clark Howard Savings Bond video here.

Or you can search to see if you have any savings bonds by going to http://savingsbonds.gov/. Just searching the web to see if you or your family members have lost money can really help have your ends meet during today's tough economic times.

Rhode Island's Treasurer wants to give you Unclaimed Money

turnto10.com reports that the Rhode Island state treasurer, Frank Caprio, may have some money for you.

There are 15,000 people on the list that have over $8 million that the state has taken over.