(Part 1 of 2)

The California’s unclaimed money program takes in roughly three hundred million dollars every year. Why should you care? Well, if you or someone you know is or was a resident of the Golden State (or had any kind of business dealings, whether you knew it or not), some of that big pile of Cali lost assets might easily belong to you!

Under the state of California unclaimed property (or escheat) law, missing money such as 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 turned over to the Treasury Dept. if the rightful owners don’t locate them within a given time period. This ‘dormancy period’ varies widely from state to state, but in Cali it is 3 years. These unclaimed monies then go to the California unclaimed property div, where they wait in the state’s general fund until returned to the people they truly belong to. This is where state employees in-charge of the Cali unclaimed cash were criticized recently. It appears that they have been all to happy to track down and take hold of the lost assets from the establishments holding them but but were less than enthusiastic about tracking down the actual owners in the Cali unclaimed money records.

One of the main reasons for the inability of government give back forgotten cash to its owners, they claim, is the fact that they can not be tracked down. The issue is, would would ever think people like Angelina Jolie, ZsaZsa Gabor, Gerri Halliwell, Victoria Beckham, Keanu Reeves, Brad Pitt, Adam Sandler, Marlon Brando and Jennifer Lopez would be difficult to track down? Their names and the names of several other celebrities are some of the names in the Cali missing money database and yet they have not been contacted by the officials at the California Unclaimed Property Division. They are all owed checks for lost assets by Cali ranging in amount from hundreds to the thousands in Ms. Jolie’s case. This just proves Cali state employees’ interest in holding this money in the general fund for use in balancing the budget deficits for as long as they can. In fact, there was recently a ruling by a judge on CA abandoned money, saying that the state wasn’t 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 has been adopted.

(to be continued)

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Millions Waiting to be Claimed in Florida (WMBB TV Panama City)
Florida has returned more than $173 million in unclaimed property over the last budget year

Osborn wants money returned to rightful owners – Beatrice Daily Sun
Nebraska State Treasurer Shane Osborn is trying to give a little money back to the people it belongs to. Wednesday in Omaha, he attempted to distribute more than $300,000. Thursday, during a brief stop in Beatrice, he spread the wealth a little …

Nebraska treasurer knocks on doors to return unclaimed money – Sioux City Journal
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – State Treasurer Shane Osborn and staff in his office’s Unclaimed Property Division went door-knocking in Omaha in an attempt to give back $350,000 in unclaimed money. Osborn said he decided to go door-to-door on Wednesday because …

$10,000 Found Alongside Hwy. 101 Unclaimed – CBS 13/CW31 Sacramento
SANTA ROSA, Calif. (AP) ― Authorities are still looking for the rightful owner of $10,000 found alongside a Sonoma County highway. Sheriff’s Capt. Matt McCaffrey said on June 5 an off-duty prison guard spotted some of the cash blowing along the …