Is this even real?
How do funds or property become unclaimed?
There are generally five reasons why funds become unclaimed:
1. Loss of communication on the owner's part - owner does not notify of the change in the applicable personal information: address, name, marital status, and employment change.
2. Owner's oversight - failure to complete required information updates.
3. Lack of action by the owner when mail received.
4. Loss or return of mail to the funds holder entity by the post office with no follow-up on the holder's part.
5. Funds holder does not or did not perform due diligence in the handling of the matter.
Forgotten or not credited utility deposits can be another way to squeeze some extra cash online. If you moving a lot
from place to place chances are there may be some deposits you forgot about, or utility deposits mistakenly not credited to you, if a payer did not perform due diligence.
It doesn't hurt to check for it.
Perhaps there are some uncashed checks made out to you floating around: it can be uncashed wages, dividends, interest
checks and so forth. These can be from any institution or company you dealt with before and for various amounts, depending on each specific case. Generally, if they return in
the mail, then the funds remain in the possession of the financial institutions who issued them.
If you are a veteran you may not even be aware of all the benefits you may be entitled to. Depending on the term of
service performed and other criteria you may qualify to receive compensation.
IRS has literally billions in estimated returns for those who did not file a return, but projected to be owed one
based on income levels. Usually, individuals have a three year window to claim their refunds.
Other avenues to look for possible extra cash are unclaimed insurance and trust fund payments. For example, life insurance policy benefits can be very well owed
to you. A portion of life insurance benefits goes unclaimed every year. After the death of a family member, other members of the family may not be aware a policy
exists or not know how to find a policy.
How many jobs have you held in in your entire life? Have you worked for government? If so, for how many years did you
render service? Are you sure you are not missing any payments?
Social Security benefit checks are not cashed each year amount to millions. Most of the family members of decedents
don't even know about it!
Postal money orders or checks is like a gold mine, but a paper mine: lost, unopened due to negligence or other reasons,
undelivered or returned to the holder by the post office because the addressee has relocated and can not be found, accumulate as uncashed. What are the odds any of these can
be made payable to you?
How many bank accounts have you had in your lifetime? How many have you closed and/or forgotten about? It is worth to
check if there is a few looking for the forgetful or oblivious owners one of which could turn out to be you.
Escrow account is used by the third party to receive and distribute the funds or documents between transacting parties.
The use of the escrow account usually defined in the written contract signed by transacting parties. Escrow accounts heavily used in financial, real estate and legal
industries.
CD’s are commonly referred to as Certificates of Deposits. These pay higher rate, but the money has to be tried up
longer that in checking or savings account: usually from 3 months to 5 years, depending on the account terms. You may have had one at some point, but may not have known the exact
naming for this type of financial account. So, it doesn’t hurt to check for it as well.
If any of your relatives or friends owned one of the aforementioned accounts and it got abandoned, then
you may have a share in it too. Secondary beneficiaries can be assigned in many kinds of financial accounts in case of the owner's unpredictable and unfortunate demise.
Who knows maybe you missing some unpaid interest, dividends or even entire account's assets?
In a case when an address cannot be found, and a child support check could not be delivered, the payment
should get reported to the Office of State Treasurer. This is how the funds become unclaimed or abandoned. Parents may claim the funds owned to them.
This site is officially endorsed by National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators
(NAUPA). As of July 2011 their database included almost the whole United States.
This website was designed especially for (NAUPA) members, but anyone can do a quick search. The site is
simply designed and easy to use even for a novice internet user. It has a list of research tools, contact information and websites by state, province or territory for
unclaimed funds in US, Canada and Puerto Rico. It also contains information on what unclaimed property is, what happens to it and how to begin your search for it.
