(Part 1 of 2)

The state of California’s unclaimed property program takes in approximately 300 million dollars annually. Why does it matter to you? Well, if you or anyone you know is or has been a resident of the Golden State (or ever had any type of business dealings, whether you knew it or not), part of that big heap of California lost assets could easily be yours!

Under the California unclaimed funds law, missing money like forgotten checking and savings accounts, uncashed checks and money orders, mineral deposits, salary checks, cash and stock dividends, state of California unclaimed tax refunds, gift certificates, and other financial assets are passed along to the Treasury Dept. if the rightful owners don’t locate them within a given time period. This ‘dormancy period’ varies from state to state, but in California it’s 3 years. These forgotten funds then head to the CA unclaimed property division, where they wait in the state’s general fund until they are returned to the rightful owners. This is where state employees who handled California unclaimed cash were recently criticized. It seems that they were all to happy to locate and collect the lost funds from the various establishments holding on to them but showed less interest in tracking down the owners in the California unclaimed funds list.

One of the primary reasons for the government’s inability to return forgotten money to residents, they say, is that they cannot be located. Problem is, who would think that people like Angelina Jolie, ZsaZsa Gabor, Gerri Halliwell, Victoria Beckham, Keanu Reeves, Brad Pitt, Adam Sandler, Marlon Brando and Jennifer Lopez would be hard to locate? Their names and the names of several other famous people are just a few of the names in the California missing money list but they have not been contacted by the employees at the California Unclaimed Money Division. They’re all owed checks for forgotten funds by California ranging in amount from hundreds to the thousands as in the case of Angelina Jolie. This just shows California state employees’ interest in keeping this cash in the general fund for use in balancing the budget deficit for as long as they possibly can. In fact, there was a recent ruling by a federal judge on CA abandoned money, saying that the state was not doing enough to locate the rightful owners and has temporarily halted the state’s s ability to seize it until a new policy of reuniting it with the actual owners was adopted.

(to be continued)

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Stimulus Payments, Lottery Winnings Go Unclaimed (News Channel 5 Nashville)
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