Archive for February, 2008

This blog has mentioned the legal mess surrounding California’s unclaimed property program before, but it seems there is no end in sight. After a recent ruling that took the side of people who are owed a share of the CA unclaimed funds, the citizens, and took the position that the state had handled lost assets improperly, lawyers for state politicians rushed to try to stop the bleeding, as this will greatly affect the state’s ability to (wastefully) spend money. Sure, California politicians will always find a way to tax and spend, but they were counting on taking money owed to citizens and blowing it as well.

Here’s what happened a couple of weeks ago:

Attorneys for California’s controller are in court trying to head off a ruling that could cost the state millions of dollars. It all stems from the state’s handling of billions of dollars in unclaimed property, taken from taxpayers without notice.

Generally unclaimed money becomes “unclaimed” because it is difficult to contact the rightful owner for one reason or another, but more often than not it relates to a change of address in one way or another. It is generally recommended that the citizens learn how to search for missing money on their own because the states are simply incompetent when it comes to this matter.

California is in a league of its own!

“In our case, they took 200 shares of GE stock, and sold it. We’ve been at the same address for 34-years, but they couldn’t find us.

This is NOT an isolated incident, and it is exactly the sort of nonsense that makes it all the more clear that residents of any state, but California especially, need to know how to search for their own forgotten funds if they are truly intent on tracking them down.

California is making desperate moves to prevent people from reuniting with their cash. Don’t let them keep yours! This legal battle is far from over and the only way to ensure you don’t forfeit money owed to you as this drags out, is to locate it yourself and claim it ASAP.

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While it is tough to nail down a total for South Dakota unclaimed money, the SD Office of the State Treasurer has reported that they’ve taken in an average of $6.7 million ANNUALLY for the past 4 years, while over the past 2 years only a little over $2.2 million was actually returned to the rightful owners. Given this trend it is clear that SD missing money totals well in to the tens of millions.

Even though unclaimed property awareness remains low, S. Dakota was able to return unclaimed government funds to more than 5,000 people, which is significant in a state with a population of less than eight hundred thousand.

The largest South Dakota forgotten funds payout was for more than $300,000, but there’s another one even larger waiting to be found and claimed - $372,702.75. Does this abandoned asset belong to you or someone you know? The only way to find out is to learn the proper way to search and where to search. It’s also important to keep in mind that with records constantly being updated, one search won’t cut it. You need to search often, and search every year as different types of assets are only handed over to the state after a number of years of dormancy, and these periods differ between each account type.

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