How I found $2,902.41 on the web!
Feb 01 '01
The Bottom Line This is the best money generating site on the web. It may give you dollars instead of pennies, and it's a lot of fun to search for treasure!
No web site has more potential of increasing your bank account than NAUPA. This is the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators. It lists the web addresses of all state offices of unclaimed assets. If a state does not have a web site, the address of that office is listed so you may write to them. They say that one person out of eight has unclaimed property sitting in some state's bank account.
Here is how I reclaimed $2,902.41 from the State of Nevada:
Three years ago, I purchased a computer so that I could transcribe my grandmother’s handwritten memoirs. After mastering the new computer and completing the task I set out to do, I entered the world of the Internet.
I had heard about unclaimed property. These are assets that are taken by states when the location of the owner of the assets is not known by the bank, mutual fund, or other business that has custody of someone’s asset. These assets could include bank accounts, stocks, bonds, uncashed payroll checks, unclaimed security deposits.....anything of
value.
I had lived in Florida, Michigan, New Hampshire, Illinois and Colorado, so these were the states I searched. I did not strike pay dirt.
Just surfing around, I looked for assets of relatives and friends. I found several instances where there was something listed for people I knew, and I let them know where to look.
Then, by chance, I looked up the name of my deceased ex-husband. He lived in Nevada and California for a time. When I searched Nevada.....BINGO!
There it was, his name and mine with a balance of $2,902.41.
This was the balance of a mutual fund that I had been investing in while living in Illinois. When my husband and I divorced, I was supposed to get half of the money in this fund. Unfortunately, my ex-husband never sent my share of the investment, but that’s life. I just forgot about it. It turned out that he never even cashed it in.
I immediately e-mailed Nevada and put in a claim for this money I received an e-mail in return and by snail mail, they sent some forms that I had to fill out. First, I had to get a death certificate for my husband, because this was a jointly held asset, and it could only be claimed by both parties, or with proof that only one party survived.
On Dec. 12, 1998, I sent a check for $8 to the State of California. It took six weeks before I received the death certificate. Then I had to find some proof that I had actually owned this asset. Although I had thought the mutual fund was long gone, I still had all my receipts, including the original $103 that I used to open the account. I guess this is the payoff for being a pack rat.
Then I went to my bank, where a bank officer signed and notarized all my documents. She also filled out a form that certified that I was indeed the person I said I was. I sent all this by certified mail on Feb. 25, 1999. Then I waited. And waited. And waited!
On April 16, 1999, I received a check from the State of Nevada in the amount of $2,902.41. The whole process took just over four months.
I am sure that every state has their own system of verifying ownership of unclaimed assets, but it was not too difficult to fill out Nevada’s forms. The waiting was the hardest part.
The $2,902.41 paid for my computer, printer and scanner, and I wouldn’t have found the money if I hadn’t purchased the computer in the first place. The only cost to me was the $8 for the death certificate and $3.20 for the certified mail. My bank did the notarizing free of charge. Great bank.....SunTrust.
The NAUPA url is: http://www.unclaimed.org
Some states do not list the amount they are holding. Others do not state where the asset came from. The person claiming the asset has to provide some details about it, just to prove that they really are the owner. In my case, the mutual fund had been bought out by another company, but the account number was still the same. Also, I noticed, if I searched the Nevada site with my name only, nothing came up. The search engine only worked with my husband’s full name. It also worked with the last name only. If you have a
common name like “Smith,” this would give you hundreds of names to look through. An uncommon name will give you only two or three names to look at. So, try using different combinations of first and last names on each state's web site. Your name might not come up on the first try.
I hope you have as much good luck as I did.
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