July 30, 2008
Find CA Lost Money – Part 1 of 2
(Part 1 of 2)
The state of California’s unclaimed money program takes in about $300 million each year. Why should you care? Well, if you or anyone you know is or was a resident of the Golden State (or had any kind of business dealings, whether you knew it or not), a chunk of that big heap of California lost assets might easily belong to you!
Under the CA unclaimed funds law, lost money such as forgotten savings and checking accounts, cash and stock dividends, mineral deposits, uncashed checks and money orders, state of California unclaimed tax refunds, salary checks, gift certificates, and other assets are passed along to the Department of the Treasury if the rightful owners don’t locate them within a given period. This ‘dormancy period’ varies from state to state, but in California it’s three years. These abandoned assets then go to the CA unclaimed property division, where they wait in the state’s general fund until they’re returned to the rightful owners. This is where state employees who handled California unclaimed cash were criticized recently. Seems that they were eager to track down and collect the lost assets from the establishments holding on to them but but were less than enthusiastic about tracking down the actual owners in the California unclaimed property database.
One of the main reasons for the government’s inability to return forgotten money to the people it belongs to, they say, is that they cannot be tracked down. The problem is, would would ever think that people like ZsaZsa Gabor, Angelina Jolie, Victoria Beckham, Gerri Halliwell, Brad Pitt, Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Lopez, Adam Sandler and Marlon Brando would be difficult to locate? Those names and the names of several other famous people are some of the names in the California missing money list but they have never been contacted by the officials at the California Unclaimed Funds Division. They are all owed checks for forgotten funds by California amounting from hundreds to the thousands in Ms. Jolie’s case. This proves once again California state employees’ interest in holding this money in the general fund for use in balancing the budget deficits for as long as they possibly can. As a matter of fact, there was a recent ruling by a judge on CA abandoned assets, stating that the state was not doing enough to locate the rightful owners and for a while halted the state’s s ability to seize it until a better policy of reuniting it with the rightful owners was enacted.
(to be continued)
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Thousands in Hamilton County still have not claimed stimulus money – Chattanooga Times Free Press
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Thousands in Hamilton County still have not claimed stimulus money
Chattanooga Times Free Press, TN - Hamilton County is among the nation’s top 200 counties for its number of unclaimed economic stimulus checks, according to a report released this week. … |
WA's $13m Beechboro Lotto win still unclaimed – NEWS.com.au
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WA's $13m Beechboro Lotto win still unclaimed
NEWS.com.au, Australia - Lotterywest has not had any unclaimed Division One Lotto prizes since 1999. Most Division One winners are prompt in claiming their money, but some do keep … |
Stimulus checks still unclaimed (Albany Times Union)
Some 440,000 senior citizens and veterans have until Oct. 15 to apply CLIFTON PARK — Nearly 440,000 senior citizens and veterans across the state have not yet applied for their part of the federal economic stimulus package, figures from the Internal Revenue Service show. “It’s $300,” said George McGowan, 67, of Clifton Park. “Why leave it sitting on the table?”Mistakes, a language barrier …
Halifax reunites savers with £16m (Guardian Unlimited)
Business & money: More than 7,200 customers reunited with their ‘lost accounts’, receiving an average of £2,326 each
