Arkansas Unclaimed Money

Residents of Arkansas would be interested to know that the State’s annual revenues are 5.6 percent higher than the previous year’s- making a jump from $19.6 million to $20.9 million. Why in the world would residents find this interesting?  Well it’s because the revenue increase was brought about by a boost in the amount of Arkansas unclaimed money from assets they’ve lost track of.

Each year the state collects abandoned bank accounts, uncollected salary checks, insurance benefits, languishing stocks and bonds and similar assets held by banks and businesses state-wide. The National Unclaimed Property Law requires financial entities to turn these over to the government after a specified dormancy period of usually 3-5 years. Tangible items from safe deposit boxes are also turned over to the Treasury and these have included two Roman coins that dates back to the time of Jesus and 600 ounces of pure gold coins belonging to an elderly widow. Her late husband apparently died a week after leaving the 600 South African Krugerrands in a bank.

In Arkansas, unclaimed money goes into the State’s General fund until its rightful owners come along. $23 million was added to the AK unclaimed money pile this year and around 5,000 residents have over $375 in their name.

State unclaimed money piles are getting bigger across the U.S. because citizens aren’t aware about their missing money. Most of the ones that know about it never bother to do an unclaimed property search thinking it’s too much of a hassle and the amount of their unclaimed money in State hands isn’t worth the effort. Well, quite true- if you didn’t know how and where to look. Doing a proper online search using tips from an unclaimed property expert can spell a significant amount of extra cash for a lot of people. Over $30 billion national unclaimed funds are waiting for the rightful owners right now. Ironically, these people are too busy making ends meet and are oblivious about their missing money.

Watch this interesting news report showing people finding their lost money: