(Part 1 of 2)

The California’s unclaimed property department takes in roughly three hundred million dollars each year. What’s it to you? Well, if you or anyone you know is or ever was a resident of the Golden State (or ever had any type of business dealings, whether you were aware of it or not), part of that big heap of Cali forgotten funds might easily belong to you!

Under the California unclaimed property (or escheat) law, abandoned assets 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 their owners don’t locate them within a given time period. This ‘dormancy period’ varies widely from state to state, but in Cali it’s 3 years. These abandoned assets then go to the CA unclaimed property division, where they sit in the state’s general fund until they are returned to the rightful owners. This is where state employees in-charge of the Cali unclaimed cash were recently criticized. It seems that they have been all to happy to track down and take hold of the lost funds from the various establishments holding them but but weren’t so keen on tracking down the actual owners in the Cali unclaimed funds list.

(to be continued)

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Unclaimed bodies stacking up – Oakland Press
The Oakland Press/TIM THOMPSON Michael Zehnder, Oakland County director of public services, at the Oakland County Cemetery on West Road in Pontiac. A family told the Oakland County Medical Examiner’s staff this week they couldn’t come to the …

Death in the Recession: More Bodies Left Unburied (Time Magazine)
As times get tougher, more survivors are leaving the bodies of their loved ones unclaimed, unburied and uncremated — and strapped local governments are finding it harder to handle the corpses

Saginaw Police Raise $5K In eBay Gold Sale (WNEM TV 5 Mid-Michigan)
Since June 4, the department has raised a total of more than $10,000 selling confiscated or unclaimed items.

A third of bushfire funds are unclaimed – West Online
More than a third of the money allocated by the Victorian bushfires appeal has yet to be claimed. A report released on the six-month anniversary of the Black Saturday disaster shows $94 million of the $266 million made available so far remains …

Roseville Man Finds People’s Unclaimed Money (WCCO Minneapolis – St. Paul)
The state of Minnesota is sitting on an enormous pile of unclaimed cash. At last accounting, it was valued at slightly more than $300 million. Now, a retired Roseville man is out to prove that finding the rightful owners isn’t that hard.