New York’s Comptroller Identifies Billions in Unclaimed Money
New York’s comptroller has reported that the state is home to billions of dollars of unclaimed money; one of the largest pools of unclaimed money in the country. While state treasury is taking all the steps to reunite the owners of these lost funds with their hard earned money, the going has not been that smooth. By a recent estimate, the state of New York currently holds nearly $10 billion in unclaimed funds. Most of these unclaimed funds come from come from 25 million inactive bank, business, and government accounts unclaimed by their owners and in the care of the state controller’s office.
State Comptroller’s office is working aggressively with the state treasury and other agencies to simplify the reclaim and search process. The results have been very encouraging with the number of inquiries and claims increasing by the day. The newly launched Online Claim program of The Office Unclaimed Funds is extremely easy to navigate and an extremely secure way to reclaim the lost money. New York department of unclaimed funds also enables you to post your claim if the name is absent from the online list.
A new outreach program has been launched by the New York State Comptroller’s Office of Unclaimed Funds (OUF) to increase awareness about the unclaimed funds process. This has resulted in a very positive response from the citizens of New York and has also seen a boost in the number of claims across the state. The outreach program effectively conveys the message across the state of New York by participating in a variety of public events. The New York State Comptroller’s Web Site can be accessed at www.osc.state.ny.us.
In addition to the various programs, state of New York also publishes an “Abandoned Property Supplement” of the New York State Register, which contains a list of abandoned property. This supplement is published by New York State Department of State, 162 Washington Avenue, Albany, NY 12231.
The outreach program of the state, along with the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators (NAUPA), a nonprofit organization affiliated with the National Association of State Treasurers has managed to spread widespread awareness about the state government’s unclaimed funds initiative.
