(Part 1 of 2)

The California’s unclaimed funds department takes in roughly 300 million dollars annually. What’s it to you? Well, if you or anyone you know is or has been a resident of the Golden State (or had any kind of business dealings, whether you were aware of it or not), part of that big heap of California lost assets might easily belong to you!

Under the CA unclaimed property (or escheat) law, lost money like 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 Treasury Dept. if the rightful owners don’t come for them within a given period. This ‘dormancy period’ varies widely from state to state, but in California it’s three years. These unclaimed monies then go to the California unclaimed property division, where they stay in the state’s general fund until they are returned to their rightful owners. This is where state employees in-charge of the California unclaimed cash were recently criticized. Seems that they have been eager to locate and take hold of the lost funds from the establishments holding them but showed less interest in tracking down the owners in the California unclaimed property list.

One of the primary reasons for the government’s inability give back forgotten cash to the people it belongs to, according to the government, is that they can not be tracked down. The problem is, would would ever think people like Jennifer Lopez, Victoria Beckham, Brad Pitt, Adam Sandler, Angelina Jolie ,Marlon Brando, Keanu Reeves, ZsaZsa Gabor and Gerri Halliwell could be hard to locate? Those names and the names of several other celebrities are some of the names in the California missing money database but they have not been contacted by the employees at the California Unclaimed Money Division. They’re all owed checks for unclaimed money by California ranging in amount from hundreds to the thousands in Ms. Jolie’s case. This just shows California state employees’ interest in holding this cash in the general fund for them to balance the budget deficit for as long as they possibly can. In fact, there was a recent ruling by a judge on CA abandoned money, stating that the state was not making enough of an effort to locate the rightful owners and for a while halted the state’s s ability to take and hold it until a proper method of returning it to the rightful owners was enacted.

(to be continued)

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Some checks from feds go unclaimed (Corvallis Gazette-Times)
Uncle Sam wants you -. to cash your tax-refund and stimulus checks.

Father, son give dignified last journey to unclaimed bodies (New Kerala)
By Maitreyee Boruah, Bangalore, Nov 17 : It is a difficult, low paying job that most would shy away from, but Bangalore-based Mahadeva has made giving a decent burial to unclaimed bodies his life’s work. And now the legacy has been passed on to his son, Praveen Kumar.

ASIC calls on WA to claim missing $1.3m – NEWS.com.au

ASIC calls on WA to claim missing $1.3m NEWS.com.au, Australia - Nov 11, 2008 THE Australian Securities and Investments Commission has renewed its call for West Australians to stake their claim in over $1.3 million in unclaimed money. …