(Part 1 of 2)

The California’s unclaimed property department takes in approximately three hundred million dollars every year. Why should you care? 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 pile of California unclaimed money might easily belong to you!

Under the California unclaimed property (or escheat) law, abandoned assets 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 handed over to the Treasury Dept. if their owners don’t come for them within a given time period. This ‘dormancy period’ varies from state to state, but in California it’s three years. These lost assets then get moved to the CA unclaimed property division, where they wait in the state’s general fund until they’re returned to their rightful owners. This is where state officials who handled California unclaimed cash were recently criticized. It appears that they have been all to happy to locate and collect the lost funds from the various establishments holding on to them but but weren’t so keen on locating the actual owners in the California unclaimed property list.

One of the primary reasons for the inability of government to return forgotten money to residents, they say, is the fact that they cannot be tracked down. Problem is, would would ever 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? Those names and the names of several other celebrities are some of the names in the California missing money database and yet they haven’t been contacted by the officials in the California Unclaimed Funds Division. They are 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 proves California state employees’ interest in holding this cash in the general fund for use in balancing the budget deficits for as long as they can. As a matter of 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 for a while halted the ability of the state to take and hold it until a proper method of reuniting it with the rightful owners was adopted.

(to be continued)

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Eastday-Lottery winner loses out on unclaimed prize (Eastday.com)
The winner of a 5.66-million-yuan (US$827,739) lottery jackpot failed to collect the cash yesterday, the deadline for picking up the prize. The unclaimed money will be added to the next draw, the Shanghai Welfare Lottery Center said.

Finders keepers? (BBC News)
Is washed up timber a windfall for beachcombers?

Forgotten money might be yours for the asking – The Wenatchee World Online

Forgotten money might be yours for the asking The Wenatchee World Online, WA - 6 hours ago The Treasury Department also keeps a list of unclaimed money held by federal agencies. The largest pot of money, as of the end of September, belonged to the …