The Truths about Unclaimed Money Searches

Is unclaimed money real? There has been much dilemma and debate over the existence of unclaimed money, and if it is really worth the time to search for it. For some, it was hard to digest the existence of a pool of money waiting to be handed over to the rightful owners, who at some point, forgot or left it behind.

With so many people getting unclaimed money returned back, it has been established that unclaimed money in America has now affected almost all of the American households. As of last estimate, almost 8 out of 9 American families have some form of unclaimed property waiting to be claimed. In most of the American extended family, there is at least one person who has not staked a claim to his rightfully earned money.

What started as a trickle has now become a stream in terms of unclaimed money that is coming into the state treasuries. It is hardly surprising that some of the major media outlets (both print and electronic) are sending out national headlines about unclaimed money and the alarming rate at which these lost funds are being added to the state treasuries. The unclaimed databases are swelling with unclaimed money as new, and existing lost money is being added at a much faster rate. While larger states like California and New York have a combined unclaimed money vault of almost $16 billion, even the much smaller and remote states have been reporting unclaimed funds addition to their treasuries, at a furious pace.

What was considered a major logistic nightmare for the state and federal governments has now been identified as a major issue for financial institutions, like banks and insurance companies? Many of the major banks are disclosing that the volume of unclaimed bank balances have been growing at a rapid pace. A recent Press Release is about half a million dollars in unclaimed money from former Washington Mutual Bank customers in Wisconsin is waiting to be claimed. It isn't difficult to dispute the accuracy of these abandoned accounts, which clearly dispels any myths about the unclaimed property facts in the U.S.

The state of Wisconsin alone has almost 8300 accounts of unclaimed property. The largest unclaimed account having a value of $58,000. As a sign of this growing problem of unclaimed property, (when the American people are in real need of money), Oprah Winfrey chose to distribute unclaimed money on her show, realizing that 8 out of 9 families in the U.S. are still the owners of some lost funds somewhere. It is that government takes special measures to unite the funds owed to armed forces and citizens on duty with the heirs and dear ones.

It is prudent to give a few real life examples of people who have benefited from the unclaimed money search, and which also helps in instilling confidence in the people who are about to start the unclaimed search process:

• Ohio: Almost 1,188 unclaimed funds accounts worth more than $617,260 were reported from Hancock County itself. At regular intervals, the state of Ohio publishes a list for unclaimed funds through widely circulated dailies in each county. The advertised accounts, each valued at $50 or more, were turned over within the past year for individuals whose last known address was in Hancock County


• Maryland: A 144-page insert into Maryland’s Frederick News-Post was published by the Comptroller’s office - which officially reported almost 60,000 identified owners of unclaimed cash worth more than $42 million.


• Colorado: Almost millions of state residents were mentioned in the payback list in Saturday’s newspapers in the state of Colorado. This list helps in broadcasting the names of the real owners of unclaimed properties in the state of Colorado.
  


• Connecticut: The newspapers in the state of Connecticut published the names of almost 35,000 unidentified owners of unclaimed properties. This had a great impact and resulted in uniting so many of the rightful owners with their missing money.


• Texas: Texas Comptroller’s office recently launched a print media based awareness program for reaching the remotest corners of Texas. Currently, Texas is publishing almost six regional unclaimed property list in the newspapers instead of one combined list. This enables a larger circulation of lists in all the areas of Texas.