Home News Hundreds of Billions of Dollars Are Held By the Government.

Hundreds of Billions of Dollars Are Held By the Government.

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Today is National Unclaimed Property Day, which means you could be due money you didn’t even realize you owed.

According to the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators, one out of every ten Americans — or 33 million people — has money in an account waiting to be claimed… and finding out if you do is simple. It’s also completely free!

Are you from Okhilama? Claimed unclaimed money in Okhilama HERE.

Millions of Americans “forget” about money they own every year: checking and savings accounts, unpaid paychecks, security deposits on apartments, refunds, overpayments, uncashed dividends, uncashed cheques, stocks, insurance benefits, and even the contents of their safe deposit boxes.

A business is required by law to make every effort to restore the property to its rightful owner; but, if no contact or activity is made within a year to five years, the property must be turned over to the state government.

Unclaimed Property Divisions exist in every state in the United States, and their job is to keep the money safe until it is reclaimed.

In California, for example, it is the responsibility of the State Controller; all you have to do is enter your name HERE to discover if you are owed money. (By the way, this isn’t a ruse!).

You could be due a few cents from an insurance return… or you could be due a lot more.

The quantity of money owing to Californians is staggering: an Excel sheet of every single Californian owed money (with their last known address and what the money is owed for) can be downloaded for almost 3GB. Thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars, are due to a large number of ostensibly clueless persons.

The greatest unclaimed sum in California is $5,279,790, which appears to be solely in State Farm insurance overage refund cheques.

If you have an uncle named William H Braun or Lindenmeyer Stratton Clarence who resided in Toluca Lake, you might want to dig into it

Obviously, when money is waiting to be claimed, there will be attempts to defraud the system.

Jennifer Hanson, press officer for the California State Controller, told TooFab, “It’s human nature.” “If there’s money to be had, someone will try to get their hands on it.” Fortunately, she stated, they have a crack team committed to ensuring that the John Smith filing a claim is the John Smith, and not just any John Smith.

The California State Controller presently has $11.2 billion in cash on hand, ready to be claimed.

It delivered 1.5 million notices last year and was able to reunite 535,342 properties worth $331 million with their rightful owners — an average of $906,849 each day — but this is still a small portion of what is currently unclaimed.

On Tuesday, the second annual National Unclaimed Property Day, NAUPA President Kathleen Lobell urged everyone to check not only their own names, but also the names of their friends and family: “If one out of every ten persons in the United States has unclaimed property, you’re likely to know a lot of them,” she said.

“NAUPA makes the fantastic point that it just takes 30 seconds to search for unclaimed property,” said California State Controller Betty T. Yee.

“We work hard in California to ensure that businesses do not hold monies belonging to previous customers, and we are always improving our security technology to make it simpler to reconcile rightful owners with their property. To see if we’re protecting your funds, go to claimit.ca.gov.”

Since the Unclaimed Property program began in 1962 in Texas, where the Comptroller also plays an active role in reuniting people with their lost money, $3 billion has been returned to its rightful owners. And there’s still another $7 billion to be distributed.

“I am proud to have returned nearly $2 billion to Texans since taking office as Comptroller, and we are always exploring for new methods to return even more,” Glenn Hegar said in a statement released Tuesday.

“This endeavor is part of my ongoing commitment to deliver excellent customer service and transparent and accountable government to taxpayers. The money belongs to the people of Texas, and I encourage everyone to check at ClaimItTexas.org to see if the state has any unclaimed property.”

The combined Unclaimed Property Divisions across all states returned $2.87 billion to unknowing Americans in the previous fiscal year, with the average claim equal to $1,609.95.