The Delaware Division of Revenue collects dormant and abandoned assets throughout the state each spring. Last year, it collected $370 million worth of these, making the Delaware unclaimed money pile even bigger. The DE unclaimed funds come from unspent gift cards, dormant bank accounts, abandoned safe deposit bank contents, stocks, insurance benefits and similar assets.

There’s even more bad news- something that might make residents search for Delaware unclaimed money and property ASAP. A news report released early this year tells of a New Jersey woman that pleaded guilty to being part of a Delaware escheat theft ring that stole over a million dollars from the Delaware unclaimed property fund in the Department of Revenue! Chandrea Sanassie, a New Jersey native, was part of a 5-person team of swindlers led by Anthony Lofink (a state official’s son) that swindled unclaimed stocks from the government. Sanassie used her share of the money to pay for cosmetic surgery, expensive clothes and jewelry, luxury cars and and started-up capital for a tanning salon. What would you do with extra cash? Do an unclaimed money search now and see if you’ve lost money you don’t know about.

Millions of dollars worth of Tennessee unclaimed property are turned into the State’s Treasury Department every year. The TN unclaimed funds belong to citizens residing in and sometimes even outside of The Big Bend State who have somehow lost track of their finances due to oversight, change of address, or errors in the mailing of financial documents. Like those of other States’ Tennessee businesses and financial institutions are required by law to turn over people’s missing money and property after being unclaimed after 3-5 years.

The $370 MILLION Tennessee unclaimed money pile gets bigger each year because the amount of TN unclaimed property the Treasury collects from banks, insurance companies and businesses is way bigger than the amount given back to owners of lost money. Reason for this is mainly lack of awareness among residents and lack of manpower in the TN Unclaimed Property Division.

Everyone should check if they have TN unclaimed money in their name- it’s quite surprising whose names appear on the State’s list of unclaimed property owners. Knoxville Commissioner Richard Briggs turned-out to have $250 from an old insurance policy. “When I got the call, I thought it must be some kind of mistake,” said the Commissioner. “When people say the word ‘property,’ I initially thought it meant land or buildings instead of money.”

A former UPS employee found out he had almost of $500 coming to him after a friend saw his name on a list of people owed Tennessee unclaimed money. Turns out he was missing money from his last paycheck at UPS. Funny thing is he had already been receiving pension checks for two years. Surprisingly, even State agencies of Tennessee are owed unclaimed money. A collective of total of $10,000 are owed to the Department of Commerce and Insurance, Department of Safety, Department of Transportation, Tenncare, Department of Revenue and the University of Tennessee! “It’s interesting, funny, that one state agency can’t find another state agency to give them their money,” says House of Representatives candidate Ron Hickman who decided to check if the State itself has unclaimed money. Assistant Treasury Commissioner Steve Curry in Nashville’s WSMV-TV News says (with sarcasm, I’m sure) “We can find the University of Tennessee, and we will return the property to the University of Tennessee and the other departments”

Think about it. If State agencies themselves can be owed unclaimed property money, what more the average Joe at his office or at the corner fast-food joint flippin’ burgers? Do an easy online unclaimed money search now- you just might have an uncashed check or lost loot out there somewhere.

It’s about time someone with some caliber gets the word out about unclaimed money.

By the way, unclaimed money, unclaimed property, missing money, unclaimed funds and similar terms are used interchangeably in regards to unclaimed money. essentially they are the same thing.

i digress…

Tiki Barber was featured on a Dateline special helping unsuspecting owners of unclaimed property get the money back into the rightful owners hands.

It was very entertaining and heart warming to see some of these people receive their funds.

Two lucky individuals received enormous amounts in funds they didn’t know they owned. It is enough to make anyone wonder if they too might have some money.

For a lifetime membership to find your money and anyone else you care to search for, see http://www.missingmoney.tv

These stories were truly inspiring and should give you every reason to search today. Not tomorrow, not the next day, right now? Why not?

With the $1 fifteen day challenge, you have very little to lose, and could have thousands in your pocket before the night is over.

Find your missing money or money owed to those you love.

Seeing as to how large the Golden State is and the large number of celebrities and busy high rollers doing business there, it’s actually not surprising that the California unclaimed money pile comes second to New York’s whopping $8 billion. What’s puzzling is the number of famous people owed cash from state unclaimed property. It’s not as if these people are difficult for the Unclaimed Property Division to locate. I mean who would have trouble trying to contact the whereabouts of ‘Brangelina’ (yes, both of them), Victoria (Posh Spice) Beckham, Keanu Reeves, J-Lo, Adam Sandler and other world-famous stars? Even State council board members are coming-up on the list of State unclaimed property. Southwestern College President Raj Chopra, county Supervisor Greg Cox, administrator of Scripps Mercy Hospital Chula Vista Pete Mabrey, Imperial Beach Councilman Fred McLean, Coronado Councilman Al Ovrom, and several other State public figures are apparently owed CA unclaimed funds form lost assets, according to a report in the San Diego Union Tribune.

New state laws have since been adopted replacing the ones that kept the California Unclaimed Property Division to aggressively locate and contact citizens owed unclaimed money in California. The amount reunited to owners after the new laws took effect at the end of 07 amounts to $284 million- a significant improvement. But a lot of people are still missing money out there. $1.2 billion are owed to Northern California residents and a whopping $300,000 to a Sacramento non-profit organization. The Golden State currently leads the country in the highest amount of unclaimed tax refunds at $40 million belonging to 500,000 Californians unfiled.

Everyone should take the initiative and do an unclaimed money search. Who knows? With the holidays coming, everyone needs extra cash for presents and extras. It’s not just in the Golden State either- all 50 states have significant amount of cash belonging to its residents who have lost track of their assets. Check-out this rss feed for other State unclaimed property articles from an unclaimed money expert.

With the weak dollar and the current state of the US economy, quick extra cash would most certainly be a blessing for most Americans right now. A recent story in “The Independent” reported that a record 28 million Americans are relying on food stamps to survive. Is this The Great Depression ‘08? Not quite, but across the U.S, rising fuel, the housing slump and national credit crunch is forcing Americans to make lifestyle changes. Fact is, more and more people all over the country are working extra hours and looking for ways earn a few more bucks to make ends meet. Ironically, a lot of them might not have to look any further than their State Treasury Department. Not many people are aware that they are owed money by the government but it’s a fact. Residents of the 50 states are owed over $30 billion spread-out among the individual Treasury Departments and New York State’s unclaimed money account is one of the biggest.

State unclaimed money can come from various sources for various reasons. 17,000 Albany residents for example, have yet to cash their property tax rebate checks amounting to $5.6 million. Any unclaimed checks will get turned-over to the State Comptroller on March 2009 as NY State unclaimed money. WXXi recently reported that Monroe County has 40 uncashed checks waiting for it in the New York State Comptroller’s office. “For confidentiality reasons I can’t tell you the exact amount, but the funds on all the claims range from less than $50 to several thousand dollars.” Emily DeSantis of the Comptroller’s office said.

According to NY State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli in a Queens Gazette report in Sept. ‘08, a total of $9 billion in NY unclaimed money and property are just waiting to be claimed by their rightful owners- most of whom are unaware they’re have unclaimed funds in their name. This might include 440,000 resident retirees and disabled veterans who haven’t filed for their tax stimulus in the various counties of the Empire State. “Most people only need to file a tax return as they normally do,” Dianne Besunder, spokeswoman for the IRS says in Schenectady’s Daily Gazette. “We will calculate eligibility and payment amount. However, many retirees and veterans do not normally file a tax return because their benefits are not taxable. This year, they must file in order to receive an economic stimulus payment.”

Those that have heard about unclaimed property money usually don’t bother to check thinking it’s too much of a fuss. These are the reasons why the money is piling-up. On Monday this week, ABC’s WSYR helped dozens of Central New Yorkers find over $11,000 of their missing money. Four callers on “The Morning News” found-out they had at least $1,000 NY unclaimed money in their name.

The New York State’s Unclaimed Property Law require that lost assets in the hands of businesses and financial institutions be turned-over to the state after a ‘dormancy period’ of 2-5 years depending on the type of asset. The Empire State has one of the biggest fines (up to $50,000) for failure to ‘escheat’ or turn over abandoned assets. These can be uncashed checks and money orders, insurance policies, stock dividends, long-dormant bank accounts, safe deposit box contents and other financial assets. The state then holds on to them until the rightful owners show-up. There’s no time limit as to when owners of unclaimed money can claim their cash, but doing an unclaimed property search in New York would be the more sensible thing to do especially in light of a recent news report about a man getting arrested for stealing New York unclaimed money.

The North County Gazette reported July last year that an owner of a Brooklyn processing company was charged with defrauding over $32,000 New York unclaimed money from the state. He did this by posing as the rightful owners of the funds using personal confidential information like Social Security numbers which he had access to in his line of work. He was a licensed process server and CEO of the company. There was another case just last month in Delaware about an employee with the State government doing the same thing. Reports like this just stresses the urgency for people to do an unclaimed money search in New York and other states to check if they are owed cash that should be in their pockets and not going to those of other people’s.

A recent KMBC news report announces that thousands of people in Kansas City may be richer than they think. At a time like this with the country in economic chaos, that’s great news just in time for the holidays! The free cash isn’t limited to Kansas either.  According to the State Treasurer , Missouri unclaimed money has grown to the massive amount of 400 million dollars. The pile of unclaimed property money will keep growing, because like in most other states, MO takes in more unclaimed money every year than they return to residents. Among the variety of reasons why these assets remain unclaimed, is the fact that most people are not aware about the existence of lost money in the Treasury, and those that know about it don’t have the proper search methods at their disposal.

With MO unclaimed money rolls nearing a half of a billion dollars, the “Show Me State” might want to change its nickname to the “Show Me The Money State”. So where does all that cash come from? There are many dozens of different sources for unclaimed money, but some of the most common are safe deposit boxes, certificates of deposit, abandoned bank accounts, life insurance policies, forgotten stocks, and checks that have not been cashed. The Judicial Court in Missouri’s Callaway County as of March of ‘08 had 68 uncollected checks worth almost $9,000 for example. This in a recent report by The Fulton Sun.

Despite the fact that there is no time limit on claiming abandoned cash, MO only guarantees that they’ll hang on to items from safe deposit boxes for one year (though they do occassionaly hold on to them for longer). According to the MO State Treasurer’s web site, this is how they handle these items: “Although State Treasurer Steelman would like to keep the contents of safe deposit boxes until an owner or heir is identified, the unclaimed property vault used to store non-monetary items of value (jewelry, coins, etc.) reaches capacity every couple of years. When the vault is full, the Unclaimed Property Division hosts an auction, and the proceeds generated from the sale of items from safe deposit boxes is recorded in the name of the safe deposit box owner. If owners or heirs are identified, they receive the entire proceeds from the sale of the items.”

It is clear that for those citizens who use or have used a safe deposit box, it is vitally important to quickly get your search started if your items hold some sentimental value to you, but at least you’ll get the money if they sell your items. It’s lucky for the majority of us, most of the money doesn’t come from these auctions.

Whether you’re a former or current MO resident, or in some cases, haven’t ever lived in MO at all, the odds that lost money is owed to you, are in your favor. And the great thing about cash from unclaimed money is that the cash already rightfully belongs to people. This means there are no games or gambling involved. The main thing keeping missing money from turning in to found cash, for most people, is their knowledge about where to search, and how to search.

Countless myths exist about unclaimed money. The most common of which is the idea that performing a simple online search on any old web site is doing a complete search. Sadly the majority of these so called “official” searches, are anything but, and their data is quite often very outdated if not totally false, and only there as a selling point. The other myth is the idea that the state’s databases are up to date and accurate. St. Louis resident Judy Hall encountered a dead end of sorts when (after being advised by a friend who discovered she was due $3,000) found out there were two MO unclaimed property accounts in her late father’s name. She discovered she had a different biological father however and this prevents her from filing a claim or even determining where and how much the unclaimed property is worth.

To learn more about these unclaimed money search obstacles, and many more, and it is important to seek expert assistance in your search for unclaimed money, to be sure that you locate and claim all possible cash owed to you.

Due to aggressive State efforts in reuniting VT residents with state unclaimed funds, the number of claims for lost financial assets in the Vermont Unclaimed Property Division are up 66% from last year. Almost 10,000 Vt residents got back $4 million from safe-deposit box contents, forgotten bank accounts, unclaimed insurance benefits, utility checks, unclaimed tax refunds and similar assets. According to the State Treasurer Jeb Spaulding in an interview on Vermont unclaimed money: “Unclaimed property refers to accounts in financial institutions, companies, non-profits, even state governments that are some kind of financially related property, whether it’s a tax rebate or a savings account or travelers checks, or gift certificates, insurance policies. And when the institution, whether it’s a private or public entity, loses contact with the person whose property it is, for a certain number of years, usually it’s three or five years, they turn it over to the state to try to find the rightful owners. Every state has an unclaimed property office, and there are some easy ways for people to search and find out whether a particular state has something for them.”

Vermont’s unclaimed property law require businesses, insurance companies and financial institutions to hand these lost assets over to the Treasurer’s Office and although there is a record number of unclaimed property claims the past fiscal year, there’s still around $45 million Vermont unclaimed money waiting for its owners that number to almost 300,000 to come and file for their share.

The VT State Treasurer’s office collected around $6.4 million worth of Vermont unclaimed property from July 1 of last year to May 1, 2008. The financial entities holding-on to these unclaimed assets are required to make efforts to contact and inform owners about their missing money before handing them over to the state after 3 years.

The average claim for unclaimed money in Vermont is $431 and current and former residents of the New England state are urged to check and do an unclaimed money search to see if they have Vermont unclaimed money in their name. They might be one of those owed considerable amounts like the retired Burlington teacher who was found to have $150,000 in her name from old stocks her husband had invested in way back in the 60’s.  “Even if people checked our Web site or newspaper insert last year, they could well in there this year and they need to check again,” Treasurer Spaulding says.

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As part of the State’s Department of Treasury annual ‘clearance sale’, the Virginia Unclaimed Property Division recently auctioned-off over a thousand items as part of it’s annual ‘clearance sale’. These are a field days for bargain hunters and seekers of antiques and priceless memorabilia. According to a report by VA’s WBDJ7, items range from diamonds to a picture of American racing legend Dale Earnhardt.

Each year, the Division of Unclaimed Property In Virginia collects lost financial assets and abandoned items from financial institutions (banks, insurance companies, the IRS, etc.) and from deposit boxes and police evidence rooms, respectively. According to their official website, “The Unclaimed Property Division is responsible for the custody of lost, outstanding and dormant accounts reported to them by businesses that have lost contact with the rightful owner when the last known address of the owner was in Virginia. The Division attempts to locate the rightful owners or their heirs to help them claim their property.” They try to locate the owners of the unclaimed assets by publishing names of owners of VA unclaimed property in State newspapers and auction-off tangible items that still go unclaimed after a year.

Fairfax County already has a million dollars belonging to people they’re unable to locate. The total amount of Virginia unclaimed money and property right now amounts to roughly $300 million belonging to thousands of residents and even some citizens from out of state. According to the Division of Unclaimed Property in Virginia spokeswoman Brooke Bredel, 1 in every 7 people in the State has Virginia unclaimed money in their name. A search for unclaimed property in Virginia and other states can turn-up extra cash for scores of Americans in financial trouble right now.
“They have a lot better odds of having unclaimed property … than they would of winning the lottery,” Bredel says in a news reporton VA unclaimed money.

Planning to rent a place in Virginia?

A lone accountant recently took on the IRS in a case disputing how much the Tax Giant collected on de-mutualized insurance policy shares and policies. Well, David slew Goliath and this means millions of taxpayers have refund checks coming.  Charles Ulrich’s win couldn’t have come at a better time as a lot of people across the US are really struggling to make ends meet.  For non-holders of these ‘de-mutualized‘ assets, there’s still good news- unclaimed tax refunds.

Tax rebates are sent the same way taxpayers file for them, so if you deposited your return electronically, the IRS will automatically deposit your rebates to your account. Most US taxpayers now file their income tax online, but tens of millions still file it via snail mail. This invariably results in unclaimed tax rebates whenever these people move without leaving a forwarding address. Unclaimed tax refunds are another thing for reluctant taxpayers to look forward to during this time of recession. The amount of unclaimed money from New York State tax refunds is quite staggering- almost $10 million worth! Unclaimed tax rebates make-up a big part of the $8 billion New York unclaimed property fund in the State Treasury. In Virginia, Maine and Tennessee, unclaimed checks averaging $700-$800 are yet to be put in the hands of thousands of residents who probably aren’t even aware they are owed unclaimed tax rebates by the IRS. There are 187,000 LA state unclaimed tax refunds also worth around $10 million waiting for residents of The Pelican State. The total unclaimed money in Louisiana owed to citizens is well over $300,000. California leads the country in unclaimed tax refunds right now with $40 million belonging to 500,000  residents(133,604 in Los Angeles County) unfiled for.

The piles of unclaimed cash with the IRS keep growing among the different states and this lost money is eventually handed-over to the State Treasuries- going to an unclaimed property fund along with other unclaimed assets. Generally, the government holds on to these assets indefinitely until the rightful owners show-up. If you or your relatives have been moving, changing addresses frequently, odds are you may have unclaimed money from tax refunds or other unclaimed property in your name. Do an on-line unclaimed money search now!- who knows? You may have a thousand or two gathering dust somewhere and not even know it.

The economic stimulus checks the IRS sent under the Bush administration were a big relief for scores of Americans currently having trouble with the rising costs of fuel, groceries and the current state of the US economy. These, combined with tax cuts do make things easier for taxpayers across the country. Sadly, a lot of North Carolina’s senior citizens and disabled still don’t know they qualify for the tax credit- leaving $2.45 million of North Carolina unclaimed money from unclaimed tax stimulus checks.

“The biggest concern the IRS has is getting these people to claim the money they’re entitled to,” Mark Hanson, spokesman for the IRS says in an August newsreport on NC unclaimed money. “If they’re eligible for benefits, we want them to get them. … We just want to tell them, ‘Look, the money is there. It’s yours. Go get it.’” Lucy Gorham of Chapel Hill advocacy group MDC Inc. says it’s a national issue: “And I think the IRS has been surprised at how much money is left unclaimed. … But when you have a group of seniors not filing tax returns, that’s logical to me. Social Security isn’t taxed, and all those Social Security recipients might not even know they’re eligible.”

These unclaimed stimulus checks, along with NC unclaimed property money from lost asset like uncashed checks, languishing stocks, dormant bank accounts and insurance and pension benefits add-up to the State of North Carolina unclaimed money pile currently worth over half a billion dollars.

According to Heather Franco of the NC Treasurer’s Office, “The North Carolina Department of State Treasurer holds nearly $700 million in unclaimed property.” In a report done by The Daily Vidette on state unclaimed property, she goes on to say that there are a million unclaimed property accounts in the North Carolina unclaimed property database. NC has a population of around 8 million people, so that translates to 1 out of every 8 North Carolina resident having unclaimed property money coming to them.

Curt McDuffee of Cary, NC was reunited with $1,365 worth of North Carolina unclaimed funds from an overpayment when his now late mother was admitted in a hospital several years ago. “After we get it, I’ll split it with my brother, and I’ll take my lovely wife out to dinner with part of it, and we’re planning to donate the rest of it to our church,” the elated McDuffee says in a WRAL report. The NC TV station was responsible for getting the NC resident in touch with his missing money.

The reason the North Carolina unclaimed money has piled-up is because most owners of unclaimed money in NC aren’t even aware they’re missing money in the first place. Anybody can be owed unclaimed property, so all residents should do an on-line unclaimed money search and check if they have NC unclaimed funds in their name. With high fuel prices and national credit crunch plaguing the US, now is as good a time as any.

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