Cash Unclaimed Media Room

The Great Iowa Treasure Hunt program has returned over $122 million in unclaimed property to more than 310,000 individuals since Fitzgerald began the program. “We get millions of dollars in each year,” Fitzgerald stated. “We believe the best way to find people are to ask others in their community to help us. That’s why we are sending out the top 25 list.”

In fall, State Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald created a top 25 list of unclaimed money owners in the state of Iowa. “You won’t find any football teams on the list, but what you will find are names of people in Lee County that have money waiting for them to claim.” Fitzgerald said. “If you don’t recognize any of the names, check our website for others.”

Taking a cue from California, Delaware is now planning to tap the unclaimed money funds which has been increasing steadily and has been unused to a great extent. Since 2007, Delaware has received more than $1.7 billion in abandoned property but returned only $46 million.

“As a state, we’re very fortunate to have this revenue source; it keeps taxes down for our citizens,” said Delaware finance Secretary Tom Cook. “But it’s a fine line to walk. We certainly don’t want to be seen or portrayed as being negative to business.”

According to confirmed sources, 25% of Texans have unclaimed property or money that is waiting to be claimed. The state treasury has been adopting various awareness programs to deliver the message to the largest chunk of the population.

Every media avenue has been utilized as part of the unclaimed property reclaims drive so that more number of Texans are benefited. The use of print media is also a big part of this strategy to reunite the owners of unclaimed property with their lost funds or assets.

According to the New York’s comptroller, unclaimed tax refunds worth millions of dollars are waiting to be claimed in New York. The state is home to some of the highest volumes of unclaimed tax refunds in the country.

The New York state treasury is taking all the right steps to track and reimburse these unclaimed IRS refund, but the process has so far been slow. By a recent estimate, the state of New York currently holds nearly $10 billion in unclaimed funds which includes unclaimed tax refunds.

The mammoth pile of unclaimed money has created more problems for both state and federal government in the last couple of years. All the officials in charge of the unclaimed funds are in consensus that the problem of unclaimed funds has been spiraling through the roof and with no viable solution in sight.

The growth of unclaimed funds across all the state treasuries has been relentless and no strategies seem to minimize the deficit between the unclaimed funds and the disbursed funds. Even the smaller states are now reporting large amounts of unclaimed funds.

As far as unclaimed money is concerned, unclaimed funds reports have indicated that celebrities are also the potential recipients of a large amount of funds. Based on one of the Inside Edition reports, the following celebrities have some unclaimed funds waiting to be claimed:George Clooney ($180 from Warner Brothers), Jennifer Aniston (a $100 Tiffany store credit), Goldie Hawn ($300) and comedian Dana Carvey ($800).

The unclaimed money vault in the state of California is growing rapidly, and is currently one of the richest state treasuries in the U.S. State officials are taking all the practical steps to reduce this unclaimed pile.

More than 9,000 memos are sent every week to the possible owners of the unclaimed funds so that they can take the necessary steps to claim their money. Like other states, California is also taking a suit of practical measures to reduce this deficit but not with a lot of success.

Florida is experiencing a rapid growth in its unclaimed money pile, with a most recent estimate putting it at $2 billion. This huge sum of unaccounted money is approximately the combined unclaimed money of 8 million U.S. residents. The state treasury is waiting for the rightful owners to come forward and claim it. Like other states in the U.S, Florida has initiated a number of awareness programs so that word can be spread about the unclaimed money in the state treasury. In 2006, $171 million was returned to its rightful owners. However, the net gain was just $101 million because $70 million was added to the vault.

The unmanageably rising pile of unclaimed money has left government officials more stunned than we can imagine. Federal agencies and state government officials in charge of the unclaimed funds are going through a very tough time trying to locate the owners of the lost funds. The growth of unclaimed funds across all the state treasuries has been scorching to say the least, and it has left most of the officials speechless.

Smaller states, which until now have been ignoring the onslaught of unclaimed funds, have now also been caught on the wrong foot. While the larger states were already grappling with the onslaught of unclaimed funds, even the smaller states and financial organizations, like banks, and insurance companies, are also reporting large volumes of abandoned and unclaimed funds.

The pile of unclaimed money holed up with the government and state treasuries is growing at a rapid pace. Unclaimed money pile is major source of concern for state treasuries as well as federal agencies.
The growth of unclaimed funds across all the state treasuries has been exponential to say the least.

While the larger states were already grappling with the onslaught of unclaimed funds, even the smaller states and financial organizations like banks and insurance companies are also reporting large volumes of abandoned and unclaimed funds. Larger states, like New York and California, are facing the challenge of locating the owners of huge unclaimed money chunks; $10 billion and $6 billion respectively. A recent Press Release is about half a million dollars in unclaimed money from former Washington Mutual Bank customers in Wisconsin is waiting to be claimed.