(Part 1 of 2)

The California’s unclaimed money department takes in approximately $300 million annually. 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 knew it or not), some of that big heap of California unclaimed money could very well belong to you!

Under the CA unclaimed property (or escheat) law, lost money 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 handed over to the Treasury Dept. if their owners don’t come for them within a certain time period. This ‘dormancy period’ varies from state to state, but in California it is three years. These forgotten funds then head to the CA unclaimed property division, where they stay in the state’s general fund until they are returned to their rightful owners. This is where officials working for the state in-charge of the California unclaimed cash were recently criticized. It seems that they were all to happy to track down and collect the lost funds from the various establishments holding them but but weren’t so keen on tracking down the owners in the California unclaimed money database.

One of the primary reasons for the inability of government to return forgotten money to the people it belongs to, according to the government, is the fact that they can’t be located. 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 difficult to find? Those names and the names of several other celebrities are just 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 lost assets by California amounting from hundreds to the thousands as in the case of Angelina Jolie. This just shows California state officials’ interest in keeping this cash in the general fund for use in balancing the budget deficits for as long as they possibly can. In fact, there was a recent ruling by a judge on CA abandoned cash, saying that the state wasn’t trying hard enough to locate the rightful owners and has temporarily halted the state’s s ability to take and hold it until a proper method of reuniting it with the rightful owners was enacted.

(to be continued)

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12/4 Comptroller Says Southeast Texans Owned Money (KBTV Beaumont)
(Houston) — Texas Comptroller Susan Combs is urging Southeast Texans to reclaim lost money. The names of 37,300 Southeast Texans included on the state’s Unclaimed Property List will appear in newspapers in the Greater Houston region on Sunday, December 13th.

BRIEF: State refunds city, county unclaimed funds; El Pasoans urged to … – TMCnet
BRIEF: State refunds city, county unclaimed funds; El Pasoans urged to check for money that belongs to them EL PASO, Dec 03, 2009 (El Paso Times – McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) — Texas Comptroller Susan Combs today handed out …

State comptroller urges El Pasoans to check database for unclaimed … – El Paso Times
EL PASO – Texas Comptroller Susan Combs today handed out ceremonial checks worth more than $115,000 to a dozen government agencies and companies. The state has more than $2 billion in unclaimed accounts – often money from long-forgotten bank accounts …

Unclaimed Property Auction Planned Over eBay (WISC-TV Madison)
MADISON, Wis. — A gold coin from 1850 is among the items the state treasurer’s office will be selling during a weeklong auction on eBay. The coin and other items to be sold are among property from safe deposit boxes that hasn’t been claimed for at least seven years.