Note to Yahoo! Chief Executive Jerry Yang.

Word is that you are trying to wring a few more bucks out of Microsoft for your struggling Web portal.

Maybe this will help: The state of California says you have $3,008.46 worth of unclaimed Microsoft dividend checks coming your way.

Yang isn’t the only billionaire in Silicon Valley who’s got a little unclaimed cash. Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs has $465.26 waiting for him from an insurance company. Google Co-Founder Sergey Brin never picked up $1,023.91 earned as a graduate student from Stanford University, in addition to $9.53 worth of dividends from The New York Times Company. Google’s other co-founder, Larry Page, has lost track of $262.26. Oracle Chief Executive Larry Ellison, who currently tops Forbes’ list of the best compensated executives, can hang onto a little more Oracle stock this year: he’s got $51.43 coming from the U.S. arm of Swiss insurer Zurich.

Of course those amounts are drops in the bucket for these billionaires, but these are exactly the types of unclaimed assets being discovered by average citizens every day. The article goes on to note that these revelations come as California continues it’s attempts to reunite people with $5.3 billion in CA unclaimed cash, which we’ve discussed here a number of times. As law makers continue to salivate of these monies State Controller John Chiang still appears to be on the side of the folks, trying to reconnect 8.7 million Californians (even billionaires) with their share.

The battle for lost assets in California is all the more reason for residents of that state to get moving on their search for missing money. Mr. Chiang can’t do it all, and he’s fighting with politicians who can’t wait to get their hands on your cash, so stop procrastinating and get your unclaimed property search started today.

California is sitting on $5.3 billion in abandoned property, which it gets to keep until someone claims it. Businesses turn over about $500 million a year to the controller’s office.

And the battle over CA missing money between Cali’s controller, John Chiang, and the state itself, that we’ve discussed in earlier posts, rages on:

It’s not exactly in the state’s interest to work hard at finding the rightful owners, but that’s what Chiang has been doing. He has pushed for reforms to speed up the process, and he even wants the state to pay interest on the money.

Last year the Legislature expanded his authority to track down property owners. Deputy Controller Hallye Jordan said the office has sent out more than a million notices since then, and there have been many happy reunions.

In one case, a safety deposit box sent to the state in 2006 contained several World War II military medals, including the Medal of Honor. The controller was able to track down the war hero’s family and return the medals to them.

Read the rest of the Mercury News article which contains a personal found money story from the author, but the bottom line is that with the fight over CA unclaimed property, relying on the government to get your cash back to you isn’t going to cut it.

It’s time for anyone who might be owed lost assets to step up and get searching for your money today to be sure they find every last penny, and put it back in your own pockets where it belongs!

Time is running out to lay claim to nearly $2 million in unclaimed property held by the State Tax Commission.

Officials say residents have until July 1 to prove ownership to more than $1.8 million of the state’s total $48 million in unclaimed cash, stocks, bonds and other assets.

Sadly, Idaho is one of the few states that has a time limit on claiming ID unclaimed assets:

Idaho takes ownership of property that goes unclaimed for more than 10 years.

Most states act as custodians, meaning they simply hold residents’ missing money indefinitely, until it is claimed. This means that Idahoans should understand the sense of urgency in reclaiming their forgotten funds goes beyond just a personal desire to take them back in a timely manner. The citizens of ID run the risk of forfeiting their unclaimed properties if they don’t learn the right strategies for locating them and claiming them ASAP.

Luckily for those Spud State residents who are new to the abandoned cash game, there are experts in Idaho unclaimed funds who can show them the ropes to jump start their search, and let them know the joys of found money.

A recent Wyoming brief from the Jackson Hole Star Tribune provides details:

State Treasurer Joe Meyer’s office will hold its annual Wyoming Windfall campaign starting Monday in an effort to return $26 million in unclaimed property to its rightful owners.

Wyoming unclaimed money takes a lot of forms, but the article lists a few of the most common:

Most of what the office returns is cash — uncollected wages, uncashed money orders, oil and gas royalties, stocks, bonds and mutual funds.

The article goes on to note that if you’re lucky, you could be in for a massive amount of missing money:

Meyer said the average claim is less than $100, but some have claimed $100,000 or more.

This is all good news for all residents of Wyoming, but you can’t get paid if you’ve never played. The only way to claim unclaimed property is to perform a thorough search using tried and true methods perfected by experienced searchers.

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.

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.

On January 1, The Tribune Democrat tells us why PA residents should make “find my unclaimed money” their New Year’s resolutions:

According to Treasurer Robin Wiessmann, the annual letter campaign is just one of many methods the department uses to find the owners of more than $1 billion in unclaimed property.

Sadly, these letter campaigns and other efforts to give money back to the rightful owners are unsuccessful more often than not for a variety of reasons. The only true way to find ALL Pennsylvania unclaimed money owed to you, is to learn the proper way to search for yourself! The government isn’t good at much of anything, why would they be good at reuniting you with your lost cash?

The article in the Tribune Democrat goes on to list some of the more common types of unclaimed assets:

Each year, the department receives unclaimed property from abandoned bank accounts, forgotten stocks, uncashed checks, certificates of deposit, life insurance policies, safe deposit boxes and other sources.

The article also mentions how much has been returned to owners recently:

The department maintains custody of the property until it is returned to its rightful owners. As of Nov. 30, nearly 60,000 owners were reunited with unclaimed property totaling more than $80 million.

Not bad, but when you consider the fact that there is a BILLION in PA unclaimed money, $80 million is just a drop in the bucket, especially when more money is coming in all the time. Once again, the only way to be confident in a lost asset search is if you do your own, but you need to learn how to thoroughly search from experts before you waste time chasing ghosts.

Various entities within the county are owed money, including the county treasurer, the sheriff’s office, the parks department, the county clerk, and the department of social services.

DeSantis says the biggest source of unclaimed funds for the county is vendor checks, which are usually from vendors that were prepaid for services which were then never delivered.

But who cares about that! How about the more than $8 Billion in total NY unclaimed money, the majority of which is owed to regular citizens! It was reported in October that even Mayor Bloomberg was owed $76,000, but most of the forgotten cash in the state of New York continues to go unclaimed, and the total is really now $8 billion and counting!

To claim the funds, Monroe County would go through the process that any New Yorker would go through, which starts with filling out a form. DeSantis says the comptroller is holding on to over $8 billion for New Yorkers across the state, and will hold the funds indefinitely, with some bearing interest all that time.

Local bloggers at RochesterTurning.com noticed that the cash was sitting uncollected earlier this week. A simple search also turned up prominent individuals in the state who are owed funds, including the governor and state comptroller Thomas DiNapoli himself.

So not only was the NYC mayor owed unclaimed assets, but even the governor and the state’s own comptroller (who is in charge of managing abandoned money!)

The forces of lack of search knowledge and lack of knowledge of unclaimed property in general combine to keep people from reuniting with their New York unclaimed money.

Whatever the reason, the money is there and just waiting to be claimed. The best thing New Yorkers can do is get in touch with an unclaimed property expert, like UnclaimedMoney.net, to assist them with their search to take back money that already belongs to them!

The state Treasurer’s Office is holding $1.4 billion in unclaimed property for 10.2 million residents and businesses.

The current Illinois population is roughly 12.8 million, which means that if you assume that the vast majority of the 10.2 million “residents and businesses” are in fact “residents”, roughly 8 in 10 are owed money!

You won’t find those odds anywhere! What more incentive does a person need to get started on their search for IL unclaimed money?

Learn the best methods for locating lost cash, bone up on how to avoid making mistakes others often do, and turn your missing money in to found money today! Don’t you think you should be spending your money how you want, rather than allowing it to sit in some dusty government office?

“We were holding over $800,000 in stock” for one man, Franchot told one of the customers holding the 714,000 accounts that have been returned to the state. In fiscal 2006, the state handed over $50 million to about 42,000 individuals.

The article goes on to explain the success of a recent lost money outreach program:

“We do a lot of outreach,” said Lynn Hall, manager of the property unit. Since the inserts ran two weeks ago, the state has received more than 12,000 calls, with more than 8,700 making apparently legitimate claims.

Despite these successes, the citizens ought to take it upon themselves to locate their own MD unclaimed money, because if history teaches us anything, it’s that government is inefficient if it’s anything. To guarantee that a resident of The Old Line State find their unclaimed assets.

Learning to find your name on an unclaimed money list is often easier said than done, but assistance from an unclaimed funds expert can help beginners sidestep issues that get in between other people and their cash.