Search For Your Unclaimed Money

Millions of Virginia Unclaimed Money reunited with owners

2008-08-07T19:52:00.000-07:00

$65,000 much needed cash was handed-out to lucky residents early this spring to Virginia unclaimed property owners who have lost track of their financial assets. This is a result of concentrated efforts of the State and the Treasurer to reunite Virginia unclaimed money to its rightful owners most of whom are unaware about being owed money. Here's an interesting piece I grabbed from an article:

According to the Unclaimed Property Division of the VA Department of the Treasury, Virginia unclaimed money comes from a number of sources, which include (but are not limited to): "savings and checking accounts, wages or commissions, underlying shares, dividends, customer deposits, credit balances, gift certificates, credit memos, refunds".

A person doesn't have to currently reside in Virginia to be owed unclaimed funds, especially since most accounts must be dormant for 1 to 3 years before they're turned over to the state, and laws governing other types don't require that they be turned over for 7, 10, even 15 years! Leaving the state doesn't mean you've forfeited the money by any means.

According to a report on The Virginian-Pilot, over a billion dollars worth of VA unclaimed funds are still stockpiled in the State's Unclaimed Property Division. Search for your missing money now! With the US financial giants on their knees and the threat of another recession imminent, now is a good a time as any to do an online unclaimed money search for extra cash.

Wisconsin Unclaimed Money

2008-06-29T23:26:00.000-07:00

Here's some good news for Milwaukee homeowners to off-set the rising costs of fuel and everything else: property relief taxes amounting to as much as $165 in tax cuts(for a $150,00 home) can be in store for them if an advisory referendum for a ballot the Milwaukee County Board voted for gets passed. This in a recent financial report on WISN. Not a homeowner? There's plenty of good news to go around- Wisconsin unclaimed money. Here's part of an interesting article I found on money owed to residents who have unclaimed property in America's dairy state:

"Wisconsin is home to a lot more American goodies than just milk and cheese. The Badger State is also home to catfish (Potosi, WI), Harley Davidson Motorcycles and the Green Bay Packers. An amusing fact I just found out about Green Bay that few know about is that it's also the toilet paper capital of the world. There's another kind of paper that can be found piled-up in Wisconsin's Treasury Department though- the green, good-smelling kind. Yep, Wisconsin unclaimed money amounting to almost $400 million is in the State Treasurer's hands and she's looking to reunite it with over a million people who are owed their fair share."

According to State Treasurer Dawn Marie Sass, Wisconsin unclaimed funds total around $330 million and with the State's population at 5 million residents, that's roughly 1 out of 5 residents owed Wisconsin unclaimed money. Read more about unclaimed money in Wisconsin.

Florida Unclaimed Money

2008-02-21T17:00:00.000-08:00

In times like these- with the dollar down and the the U.S. economy in dreary condition, you would think Americans would keep close tabs on every cent they had. Judging by the amount of unclaimed money in the State of Florida right now however, millions of residents are actually missing money and I bet most of them don't even know it. A perfect example would be the tens of thousands of Tampa Bay residents that have yet to claim tax refund checks worth $300 each this year. A St. Petersburg Times report says the IRS identified 21,000, 18,000 and 9,500 senior citizens and veterans in Pinellas, Hillsborough and Pasco (respectively) that have unclaimed tax refunds in their names.

Alex Sink, Chief Finance Officer for the Sunshine State recently announced there are almost 3 billion dollars in unclaimed money for Florida residents and their relatives. The lost funds belong to roughly 8 million residents who have somehow lost track of financial assets like savings accounts, tax refunds, insurance and pension benefits, safe deposit box contents, stocks and bonds. In fact, a recent news report out of FL's Martin County lists quite a few people being owed the latter by the County Circuit Court's accounting department. A certain Victor Diaz has $1,000 from a bond refund check in his name as do a Julia Hinds and Mark Landing Apartments Ltd. ($123 and $1,214.40, respectively). If theirs and hundreds more unclaimed checks from 2006 ranging from petty amounts to $2,000 aren't collected by September 1, 2008, these will be turned-over to the State.

Escheat laws dictate that establishments like banks and insurance companies turn over such assets to the government after a period of 3-5 years depending on the item. It then becomes the responsibility of the Florida Treasury Department's Unclaimed Property Division to reunite as much of the found money to its rightful owners. Each year they do reunite around 200,000 people on the Florida unclaimed money list with their unclaimed funds, but there's still a lot left waiting to be stuffed into the pockets of their rightful owners.

Unclaimed property also includes abandoned safe deposit box contents and these are auctioned-off each year to make way for incoming items. The Florida Unclaimed Property Division recently held this year's auction- raising almost a million dollars in Florida unclaimed money from the items. According to the North Country Gazette, over $925,000 worth of various items like silver bars, gold coins, jewelry and valuable antiques were sold-off by the Division.“I am thankful to the Floridians who bid on the wonderful items up for auction and the members of our Bureau who worked so hard to make this event a success,” says Sink in the report adding “Not only did we raise a record-breaking $925,550 for Florida school children, we also raised awareness about our mission of reuniting Floridians with their unclaimed property.” Proceeds from the abandoned items can still be claimed by the rightful owners.

If you or a relative is a resident of the Sunshine State, doing a search for FL unclaimed money would be a great idea. A a portion of the unclaimed money pile could actually be for you as no one really knows who turns up on the list. A recent report by Jacksonville-based News4Jax says former Gov. Jeb Bush, actorys Burt Reynolds and Wesley Snipes, Alonzo Mourning of the Heat, the Allman Brothers guitarist Dickey Betts, football great Joe Namath, Olli Jokinen of the Panthers and Terry "Hulk" Hogan are all owed unclaimed funds from Florida unclaimed property. The State also auctions-off unclaimed property items annually in public areas- last time it was at the Grand Hyatt Tampa. Might be worth looking into if you're looking for lost family heirlooms or bargains on antiques. Or you can get cold cash by doing a search for unclaimed money in Florida now!

Search For Unclaimed Money

2008-01-07T18:14:00.000-08:00

A national survey at the beginning of the '08 on New Year's resolutions showed that more Americans favored financial well-being over physical health. A larger percentage of respondents prioritized prosperity in '08 compared those who had physical fitness on the top of their list. Maybe these people had some premonition of things to come, but I personally believe in the saying that health is wealth. However, I also believe in another saying: “Money makes the world go 'round”. In the face of a threat of another recession, finding ways to get extra cash in our pockets is becoming more and more difficult. Not a lot of Americans are aware, but doing an unclaimed money search in the various State Treasury databases across the country is one of the easiest and quickest ways of doing this.

Experts say there's an excess of $35 billion worth of unclaimed money and property that Americans have lost track of. The reason the national unclaimed property fund got so huge is because most people don't bother doing an unclaimed money search since they aren't even aware they're missing money. The amount of unclaimed money in New York for example, has already reached whopping 9 billion dollars and millions more are added to the state's unclaimed property fund annually. The California unclaimed money pile comes next at $5 billion with almost 9 million names on the State's unclaimed property list of owners.

Fight-off that 'recession depression' and get lost cash in your pockets now. Find out if you are owed money by the government and search for unclaimed money and property in all the states you've lived in.