A dear friend of mine alerted me to this great website www.missingmoney.com. (Thanks E.A.) It has been such fun to let people know about this site. Also in my state-Washington, there is a website that leads you to a site called ClaimYourCash.org .
A relative of mine found an old paycheck here for $134, someone else I know found $321 and another person found more than $4,000! These include stale checks (more than 182 days old-six months) from insurance companies, last paychecks, deposits refunded from the local utility, etc.
Here’s how these funds become “missing money”. Someone owes you money and the funds stay “on file” or “in suspense” somewhere.
- Could be a check that you failed to cash for some reason, maybe a perfectly good one.
- It could be from an inheritance
- Or a missing pension benefit
- Long-lost refund from a business
Companies, organizations and governments have certain rules they must follow to segregate these funds to give you time to claim them. In Washington state the law says this:
“State law protects unclaimed property until it can be returned. There is no time limit for filing a claim and rightful owners or their heirs can claim property reported since 1955. The state may auction the content of safe deposit boxes, however, if not claimed within five years.”
A recent article in the Wall Street Journal covered what some states are doing with three types of accounts that may surprise you. They are DRIP’s, (Dividend Reinvestment Plans) IRAs, CDs and education savings accounts. See that article here. See link for lost/missing pension benefits here. If you believe a government owes you money, check here! Here’s to a successful search and some surprise cash in your bank account!
Related articles
- Illinois Unclaimed Property Database (chicago.cbslocal.com)
- Pennsylvania Officials Post List Of Unclaimed Property (philadelphia.cbslocal.com)
- Does This Unclaimed Property or Money Belong to You? (tulsage.wordpress.com)
- http://www.komonews.com/news/consumer/Finding-unclaimed-cash-Dont-just-check-once-or-twice-164689606.html
No Dollar Left Behind 
Thank you for spreading the word about what we all do in every state!
Thanks for reading WI! I know that each state is happy to ensure that these funds go back to their rightful owners.
Not all states participate on missingmoney.com. You can click on the map of the US on the home page and it will take you to a color-coded map. Green states have their info there. Blue do not. You can click on the blue states to go to the appropriate site.
However, I have found that the very old listings are not on missingmoney.com and may be found on the individual state site. Therefore, my recommendation is to go to unclaimed.org. NOTE! This is .org NOT .com that will charge you. Never ever pay for an online search!
In addition, both sites have a link at the top that will take you to additional sites such as the IRS for unclaimed tax refunds, HUD refunds, Savings bonds, forgotten pensions ($197 million!), and international listings.
There are more places to search even beyond this!
Thank you very much for the extra leads, Mary! Plus the advice to never pay for an online property search! Dana
Reblogged this on EMPOWERED RESULTS ~ Creating A Difference In Our Communities… and commented:
You could be missing money and not know it…check out this post! Then, go to http://www.missingmoney.com or http://www.unclaimed.org. I will probably list these under My Links To Links page some time this week!
Thanks for the information. Missing money is always a precious. But in which form it has lain it is always not clear to all. That’s because more information is needed. Your data must help many rightful owners of the missing money to find out their unclaimed property.
Thanks for sharing this beautiful information