Found Money and How to Reclaim Lost Assets
Found Money and How to Reclaim Lost Assets |
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"You may be about to come into a small fortune and we’re going to tell you where to look. While you may have given up on secret maps to buried pirate treasure, we know a secret that could make you very happy, maybe even rich. No gimmicks. And best of all, the windfall could be yours for just the price of a phone call..."MSNBC's Dateline program "Show Me The Money Communications Personal Finances Internet Computer Cities on a Budget Arts and Entertainment Lifestyle Games Books and Magazines Frugal Education Health Travel and Entertainment
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How to Go About Where The Money Is Banks How the Money Is Being Held Real Estate First, make a list of every state in which you've ever lived and all the jobs you've ever held. Include all the names you've ever used. Write down the maiden names of your wife, mother, grandmother, granddaughter or other female relatives? Write down common misspellings of all your names. Next, make a list of all your deceased relatives and any names they may have used. Include, if known, their social security numbers and date of birth. Start compiling birth/marriage/death certificates, social security numbers, anything that could prove identity and ancestry. Then go to the unclaimed property division, usually located within the Department of Revenue or Treasury, of every state where you, other members of your family or your deceased relatives have lived. You'll find a complete listing of all the states' Unclaimed Property Divisions in the right hand column of this page. Each state holds millions and even billions of dollars in abandoned funds: New York state alone is holding over 5 billion dollars just in bank accounts and security deposits, and California holds over 3 billion dollars. Because many states only list property for one, two or three years, we suggest that you ALSO write a letter to the state requesting a more thorough search. Include ALL of the names, misspellings, etc., that you've written down. Also, inquire directly of any companies in which you, your family or your deceased relatives ever owned stock. While laws require that companies turn over abandoned stocks to the state, not all companies comply. Watch The Media The holders of the unclaimed assets often make serious efforts to locate the owners via radio, TV and newspaper ads as well as direct mail,. Some go so far as to set up booths at carnivals and malls. We've even seen notices at turnpike tollbooths. While many states publish newspaper advertisements listing the names of people who have money coming to them, most states advertise only the names of people whose property they received during that year. If you check the list and don’t find your name, keep searching. Go beyond state records to look for money not turned over to the state: Retirement benefits and Pensions. Go over your list of previous jobs. If you worked at a company for at least five years, you may be entitled to retirement benefits. Contact the company to find out. Even if you worked for a company that subsequently went bankrupt, don't give up. Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp provides access to a directory of nearly 10,000 people owed a total of $19 million from terminated pension plans. To date, 1,745 pensioners have successfully claimed over $5 million in benefits, with awards ranging from a few dollars to more than $100,000, averaging about $4,000 per person found. For those who find their name in the directory, the site offers details for filing a claim. Social Security Benefits The Social Security Administration is holding $75 million dollars in un-cashed benefit checks. The Social Security Administration's Toll-Free Number Did you know.... that a former spouse can receive benefits under the same circumstances as a widow/ widower if the marriage lasted 10 years or more. Benefits paid to a surviving divorced spouse who is 60 or older will not affect the benefit rates for other survivors receiving benefits. CLICK HERE for more information. If a person dies before payment can be made, can payment be collected by the estate? CLICK HERE for the answer. Veterans Benefits If you had a relative who served in the military from as far back as the Civil War, you can try the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs. It stores thousands of disability accounts and benefit packages for returning military personnel who never collected. Railroad Benefits Only 14% of railroad retirees have had their spouse or heirs claim their life insurance policy. Union benefits. 95% of union members have a group life insurance policy that is paid by their employer and has never been claimed. Did you work at a union job for more than five years? If so, you may be vested in a pension plan and even have a small life-insurance policy. Contact the local or regional office of the union to find out. Savings Bonds The United States Treasury is holding $1.3 billion dollars in savings bonds issued before 1949 that have never been redeemed. What to do when a bond owner has died (Series EE). For series I What to do about lost, stolen or destroyed bonds. Internal Revenue Refunds At the end of 1999, IRS held over 102,000 1998 income tax refund checks returned as "undeliverable" by the post office. The total amount of those checks: $72 million. The previous year, $63 million worth of checks went undelivered. Add to those figures the BILLIONS of dollars owed the public in the form of UNCASHED checks and you have a STAGGERING SUM of money which could be collected. If you happen to be holding a refund check that is over a year old, you must apply to the IRS for a replacement. If you didn't receive a previous year's refund check, you can deduct the amount from subsequent years' taxes owed. If you don't owe taxes, then write your nearest IRS office and ask them to resend you the check to your new address. The best way to contact the IRS is in writing. Go to the IRS website for your nearest IRS office.
Bank accounts and utility deposits. It's possible you may have left town without closing your bank account or asking utility companies to return deposits. Contact the bank(s) and utility company(s) directly. Guide to Finding Lost Bank Accounts (PDF Format) from Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. If your bank has merged or been acquired, your account may well have been transferred to a successor bank or funds may have been insured against loss by government regulators such as the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) and NCUA (National Credit Union Administration). Life-insurance benefits. According to industry experts, more than 25 percent of all life-insurance policies go uncollected. Search a deceased relative’s canceled checks for the name of an insurance company or agent, then contact that company. ClaimFinders.com charges a $150 upfront fee and 10% of the take. UnclaimedAssets.com provides names and addresses of insurance companies. Some insurance companies have searchable databases of unclaimed funds on their websites: New York Life Unclaimed Funds Finder Money from real estate. You cannot assume that a deceased relative’s property was sold for delinquent taxes. Some property is listed on tax rolls for years before being sold, and any money that exceeded the tax bill would have been sent to the state while waiting for heirs to claim it. Check with both the state and local governments to find out. Don't overlook your own real estate. The Federal Housing Administration is sitting on $60 - $65 million dollars in mortgage insurance refunds owed to borrowers who paid off their FHA home loans early. If you ever had a HUD/FHA insured mortgage, you may be eligible for a refund on part of your insurance premium or a share of the earnings. HUD Refund Form Safe Deposit Boxes Thousands of safe deposit boxes go unclaimed every year after the death of the owner. If the location of the box is unknown, or if the bank branch has closed, recovery is made difficult if not impossible. Time is of the essence as abandoned boxes are subject to being opened and the contents sold at auction. If you don't know where to start looking, MissingAssets.com claims to be able to help for a small fee. Frequent-flier miles. Many airlines allow an heir to claim a deceased relative’s frequent-flier miles. Some airlines have a three-year limitation. Check the deceased relative’s credit card statements or travel agent for an account number. Traveler's Checks American Express enjoys a float of $3.8 billion dollars on un-cashed traveler’s checks. Purchasers should contact the bank or private issuer where the checks were purchased. Travelers checks are allowed the longest dormancy of all assets, typically fifteen years from the date of issue. Bureau of Indian Affairs Tribal Trust Accounts Tribal Trust Accounts "....11 million acres of land are held in trust for over 387,000 beneficiaries via the Individual Indian Monies (IIM) system. More than $300 million annually from agricultural and oil leases, mining and water rights, rights-of-way and timber sales is collected by the Interior Department's Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) for distribution to owners...." Read the District of Columbia's Why Would You Have Unclaimed Property? Fortune Hunter, 21st Century Style Ohio's Aggressive Policy to Return Unclaimed Assets to Their Rightful Owners According to NAUPA: "To date, Ohio has returned more than $187 million in claims. Money generated by investments of unclaimed funds goes to Ohio's Department of Development where it is used to promote jobs and the economy throughout Ohio by funding and guaranteeing low and moderate income housing loans. Ohio is especially proud of the outreach programs it conducts to locate owners of unclaimed funds. In addition to statutorily mandated yearly advertising in each of Ohio's 88 counties, we send lists of owners of unclaimed funds to every county treasurer, state legislator and local official of Ohio's cities and villages. We also present checks publicly to raise awareness of our programs through the news media and operate a traveling Treasure Hunt program. Our Treasure Hunt program is the division's highest profile outreach program. Using laptop computers containing the division's entire searchable database, employees travel to county fairs, senior citizen expos, shopping malls and local government days. They search for lost funds for anyone who visits the Treasure Hunt booth. This program targets economically depressed areas of Ohio based on statewide unemployment figures and areas in the state that may have been hard hit by flooding or other natural disasters. Our largest Treasure Hunt is held every year at the Ohio State Fair. During 1998's fair, over 21,854 people visited our booth and we returned 2,517 accounts, a total of $294,113.42, to the rightful owners. In December 1998, the Division began mailing postcards to owners of new accounts received during the previous reporting season notifying them that their funds have been turned over to the Division. The postcard is sent to the owner's last known address in hopes that the owner still lives there or left a forwarding address on file with the post office. If the owners received the postcard, they could contact the office and have a claim form sent to them. This program has been so successful that we are bypassing the postcard step and sending claim forms directly to owners of new accounts. Ohio's most popular outreach program, however, is our website with a searchable database. The Division's entire database is completely searchable by name, and includes every unclaimed account received since its inception in 1968...." Unclaimed Funds Databases Let You Do "Do It Yourself" Searches for Free. UnclaimedAssets.com ."Supersite" Many excellent resources.
The National Unclaimed Property Database Unclaimed Life Insurance New York Life Unclaimed Funds Finder Assets Recovery for Holocaust Victims Living Heirs Project LivingHeirs.com "....a not-for-profit cooperative effort by three independent organizations -- Avotaynu, a Jewish genealogy publishing service, Risk International Services, Inc., an insurance archaeology and claim recovery firm, and Ancestry.com, a family history Internet and publishing company. The Living Heirs Project helps heirs of Holocaust victims recover family assets unjustly confiscated by the Third Reich...." Step 1: Identify Ancestors With Documented Assets. Determine if you are a relative and heir to a Holocaust victim(s) who lost assets in the war. To do this, click here Step 2: Document and Value Confiscated Assets. Identify the specific assets owned by your relatives. These registries and documents contain information about the value of these assets at the time they were confiscated. To do this, click here (Risk International). Step 3: Document Your Heirship. Create a "family tree" to document your claim to the confiscated assets. To do this, click here (Ancestry.com). Holocaust Victim Assets Litigation (Swiss Banks) "....This is the official information website for the Holocaust Victim Assets Litigation against Swiss Banks and other Swiss Entities. You may have important rights under a proposed $1.25 billion (U.S.) Settlement of a class action lawsuit against private Swiss Banks and other Swiss Entities for their alleged conduct related to World War II and the Holocaust. The Settlement is intended to resolve litigation filed on behalf of Victims of Nazi Persecution and their heirs or successors. On August 9, 2000, the United States District Court signed the final order and judgment approving the Settlement Agreement as fair and reasonable...." International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims Holocaust Era Assets: Records and Research at the National Archives and Records Administration See also Holocaust Era Assets: A Finding Aid to Records Swiss Bank's Dormant Accounts Website Holocaust Assets and Switzerland Dutch Association of Insurers: Settlement of WWII Insurance Assets Holocaust Victims Insurance Information Holocaust Claims Processing Office of the New York State Banking Department Czech Republic's List of Confiscated Properties
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"....But the $112,000 was his. He was dumbfounded. How could anybody have so much money without knowing it? The state explained the money came from an old bank stock. And that jogged his memory...." MSNBC's Dateline program "Show Me The Money Start Your National Search for Unclaimed Money... for FREE! More than HALF the states are participating in MissingMoney.com ... and more coming soon! It's a great place to start your unclaimed property search! Click Here for Success Stories! Click Here to find out which states are participating. State and National Websites where you can Inquire for FREE about Unclaimed Assets Before you pay anyone to tell you if you have Unclaimed Assets, check these free databases first: HUD Refund Form Unclaimed Federal Property Offices Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation Department of Veterans Affairs National Association of Unclaimed Property State by state listing of where to search for unclaimed property in that state. "State governments hold $14 billion in unclaimed valuables. Each year, states return only 4 percent of that cache to its rightful owners." CBS Marketwatch NAUPA National Association consists of state officials charged with the responsibility of collecting and reuniting lost owners with their unclaimed property. State unclaimed California "You may be one of millions of Californians owed money by the State! The State of California is currently holding more than $2.1 billion in Unclaimed Property value belonging to approximately 5 million individuals and organizations. This property is mostly money left inactive or dormant by the owner for more than three years." Information about Unclaimed Property in PDF Form Colorado Payback "The money or property always belongs to the owner or heir of the account and there are no time limits for filing your claim. Through the end of 1997, more than $70 million had been returned to over 190,000 Coloradans. One individual alone received over $110,000". Search Form Connecticut's "Name It and Claim It" For information about Unclaimed Property in Connecticut, Click Here. Or go directly to the Online Inquiry Form Delaware Abandoned or Unclaimed Property Information District of Columbia Unclaimed Property Florida "The Comptroller is custodian of more than $500 Million in unclaimed property —from savings accounts, safe deposit boxes, utility deposits, and other sources. Florida law requires that anyone receiving unclaimed property on behalf of another person, for a fee, must be a licensed private investigator." There is no limit to the fee which can be charged. Illinois, Dept. of Financial Institutions, has a form on the Chicago Sun Times site. Iowa: Great Iowa Treasure Hunt Maine "Search for your name. We may be holding property that you have lost track of, like an uncashed check, or an old savings account. You will be able to search an online database to see if your name is one of the 80,000 for whom we are safeguarding property. For now, call or email us for a quick search." Maine is now actively partnering with MissingMoney.com Maryland The State of Maryland has over $100 Million in Unclaimed Funds! Massachusetts is now actively partnering with MissingMoney.com Montana is participating in MissingMoney.com New Mexico is participating in MissingMoney.com New York (See also BBB's paper) North Dakota Cash Reunion Program Oklahoma is participating in MissingMoney.com Rhode Island $60 million in unclaimed property. Vermont Typically these unclaimed assets are savings and checking accounts, contents of safe deposit boxes, life insurance policies, utility deposits and undistributed dividends (not real estate). These assets are transferred to the Treasurer after a specific length of inactivity, usually five years. Currently the Abandoned Property Division has on file more than 31,000 accounts with a value of over $6 million. Dealing with U.S. Treasury Savings Bonds What to do when a bond owner has died (Series EE). For series I What to do about lost, stolen or destroyed bonds. States Play 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?' With Unclaimed Cash — Sort Of "....Most individual claims are less than $300, according to NAUPA. But sometimes unsuspecting heirs find they’ve hit the jackpot. "There’s the woman in Nevada who saw her deceased father’s name listed in a newspaper ad placed by the state’s Unclaimed Property Division. Turned out a bank was holding $80,000 from his social security checks, which the woman and her sister used to start a clothing business. Or the farmer’s widow in North Dakota, so destitute she borrowed money to bury her husband, and then learned he had hidden $50,000 in stock certificates in a grain elevator on their farm....." Jewish Genealogists Gear Up to Help Identify Heirs to Assets of Holocaust Victims Louisiana lottery corporation announces Article: Lost Funds Aren't a Lost Cause Unclaimed Assets Await Rightful Owners Article: Unclaimed Money (Worth Online) "Until they read their names in the paper, most of them won't know they have these assets, which range from $50 to the $147,534 the state has for a Detroiter who won't talk to reporters until she gets her money." "Ed Anderson couldn’t believe it. The Salt Lake City retiree was convinced he knew where all his money was. So he was skeptical when his daughter-in-law saw his name posted on a local television show about unclaimed property. Curious, Anderson got in touch with the state. 'Originally a letter suggested it was around $7,000,' he says, 'and I said ‘well, that’s good.’” "But the $112,000 was his. He was dumbfounded. How could anybody have so much money without knowing it? The state explained the money came from an old bank stock. And that jogged his memory.
“Dateline” decided to check out California’s unclaimed property Web site, since we figured more famous people live in California than anywhere else. And sure enough we came up with a veritable who’s who in Hollywood. We found big names like Jack Nicholson. He has just more than $70 coming to him; Steve Martin has $155; Dustin Hoffman close to $300; Mel Gibson, more than $400; Kevin Costner, more than $500; Kathleen Turner more than $600; Michelle Pfeiffer has over $900; Daryl Hannah close to $2,000 and Paul Newman close to $3,000. Representatives for these stars said their clients never knew about the money until “Dateline” called.
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There are many aspects to locating lost assets. To locate them, go to Google.com and search on "found money " or "lost assets".
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