(Part 2 of 2)

One of the primary reasons for the inability of government to return forgotten money to the people it belongs to, they claim, is that they can not be tracked down. The issue 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 could be difficult to locate? Their names and the names of a number of other famous people are some of the names in the California missing money database and yet they have never heard from the officials in the California Unclaimed Property Division. They are all owed checks for lost assets by California ranging in amount from hundreds to the thousands in Ms. Jolie’s case. This proves once again California state employees’ interest in keeping this cash in the general fund for use in balancing the budget deficit for as long as they can. As a matter of fact, there was a recent ruling by a judge on CA abandoned assets, saying that the state wasn’t trying hard enough to return it to its rightful owners and has temporarily halted the state’s s ability to seize it until a new policy of returning it to the rightful owners was adopted.

The total dollar amount for these funds in CA averages five billion dollars annually – imagine the amount of interest this generates for the state! Bill Palmer, an attorney in Sacramento who has fought in many cases involving CA unclaimed money, said the state’s department was created to be a lost and found for California residents. Sadly, it has been turned into a profit generating ‘business’ in the past few years.

The hold on the seizure of property by California has now been lifted and the new CA State Controller, John Chiang, is making extra efforts in the form of widespread changes in improving how his office deals with California missing money. There’s still a great need though for Californians and Americans in all states across the U.S. to learn about the presence of these funds and on how to perform a thorough search for them.

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State has $50 million to give you – Cincinnati.com
HIGHLAND HEIGHTS – Each year the Kentucky Treasury collects about $50 million in unclaimed property, often sitting in forgotten bank accounts. State Treasurer Todd Hollenbach has started a tour of Kentucky counties seeking volunteers to help track …

More bodies going unclaimed at LA County morgue – Los Angeles Daily News
As a result of the poor economy, bodies in increasing numbers are going unclaimed by Los Angeles County families who cannot afford to bury or cremate their loved ones. At the county coroner’s office, which handles homicides and other suspicious …

Schneider: Restitution money is running out, and Europe needs to step … – JTA
NEW YORK (JTA) — Gregory Schneider was promoted recently to the top professional position at the Claims Conference, executive vice president, after several years as chief operating officer. JTA Managing Editor Uriel Heilman sat down with Schneider …