Unclaimed Property Blog

Do you read the fine print when you are filing out finance forms? Here are some things you should know regarding the 0% financing for 12 or 24 months. It may be the bankers and not the consumers who are the winners in this game.

Retailers are taking a financial approach that’s proving popular. It is the offers of 0% financing for 12 or 24 months when shoppers buy big-ticket items like plasma televisions and washing machines. Even though such deals can lead to write offs as the customers drawn to them often have less discretionary income and are more likely to default; retailers feel they can live with the delinquencies. Yes, retailers are willing to do this because the delinquencies have less margin-killing than mark down merchandise.

While it may be common for a person to look for unclaimed property, did you ever consider that the city may have money left unclaimed? Just think what this could do for your city.

More than a billion dollars is sitting at the Texas state comptroller’s office waiting to be claimed. Some of it belongs to public agencies and local governments, such as the city of Dallas, which has let it collect dust for years.

The city’s ambulance service has several hundred dollars in the state fund; Dallas Water Utilities, the city’s convention center and the library system also have money waiting . One unclaimed check is for $9,000.

Seven years ago the power company paid Robert Jenkins his deposit. He lost the check. Since he is a man of principle, he pressed on – here is his story.

Robert Jenkins, now 71, had rented an apartment and moved out in 1998. Shortly afterwards, Duke Power company mailed him a $41.18 deposit refund check.

The check got misplaced by Jenkins’ former roommate, but was found seven years later.

Jenkins then contacted Duke Power before he attempted to cash the 7-year-old deposit refund. His bank returned the check stating the account was closed. His bank also charged him $15 for the returned check.

It appears that people would know where their money was, so how is it that each state has money unclaimed? Here are some of the ways that people “lose” their money.

This money comes from many sources, typically utility deposits, savings bonds, bank accounts, family properties, safe deposit box contents, employment checks, and insurance policies that have gone unclaimed and are now turned over to the state.

When a state has a natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina, it’s coffers can tenfold in dollar value. The reason behind this is that a very large portion of those who lose their home also lose important papers. Also some tend to forget the exact location of many of their assets, after all it was written down on the important papers.

Unclaimed property is included in Jack Voight’s campaign for re-election as State Treasurer for Wisconsin. He is pledging to continue to “Do More With Lessâ€? for the citizens of Wisconsin. He has returned over $68 million of unclaimed property to Wisconsin citizens since 1995, more than any previous State Treasurer.

Treasurer Voight’s programs include a $300 million Unclaimed Property Program, a $1.5 billion EdVest College Savings Program and a $3 billion Local Government Investment Pool (LGIP). Since user fees and earnings from the programs cover expenses, his office is a profit center for state government and uses no general state tax revenues to operate.

This could be a hard pill to swallow for General Nutrition Inc., owner of GNC stores. The company owes the state more than $4 million in unclaimed property that belongs to Pennsylvania consumers, vendors and employees.

The money is from uncashed checks, unredeemed gift certificates and credit balances, said Robert P. Casey Jr., who audited General Nutrition Inc.

“By law, companies operating within the Commonwealth must turn over money and property to the state that has gone unclaimed,” Casey said.

The audit revealed that General Nutrition did not have policies to ensure unclaimed property was properly remitted to the state. Casey recommended the company establish procedures to remedy the problems.

Did you pay all of your taxes? Some individuals and business have not and it is adding up. The Internal Revenue Service has reported that the gap between taxes paid and taxes owed stood at more than $300 billion, with a large portion due to individuals understating income.

“Even after IRS enforcement efforts and late payments, the government is being shortchanged by over a quarter trillion dollars by those who pay less than their fair share,� said IRS Commissioner Mark Everson. “People who aren’t paying their taxes shift the burden to the rest of us.�

This may seem strange but a woman living in Oregon finds money in Texas that belongs to a school district in Pennsylvania.

Wendy Lemmerman, 42, of Portland, Ore., checks Web sites listing unclaimed property to try to find money for charities.

Lemmerman recently found $35,000 that Texas was holding in unclaimed money for the Philadelphia School District . She sent an e-mail toThe Philadelphia Inquirer and the newspaper forwarded the tip to the district.

Neither the school district nor the Texas comptroller’s office supplied details of the origins of the unclaimed funds. The Inquirer reported that a district financial specialist, Jessica Diaz, said the money included two checks that apparently were rebates or refunds from the mid-1980s, one from Xerox Corp. and one from Dell Marketing L.P.

Steve Westly, CA State Controller, has a strict policy against the selling of hate materials. It was his office however that had auctioned such materials on an online auction.

Specifically, a batch of Adolf Hitler stamps that sold for $85 in April and a Nazi cross that sold for $80 in November.

A copy of “Mein Kampf” was recently pulled from the state’s Web site after a Sacramento TV station called attention to the Hitler manifesto.

The items are among the warehouses of valuables, which have gone unclaimed by their owners for more than three years, turned over to the state from safe deposit boxes.

Borrowing a page from the Iowa playbook, state officials in Nebraska and South Dakota are taking more measures to return forgotten property to residents.

Millions of dollars of unclaimed wages, stocks, gift certificates, telephone deposits and many other categories are the property of the people who own them. But in an increasingly mobile society, South Dakota Treasurer Vernon Larson said, people can’t be found to get back what is rightfully theirs once they’ve apparently forgotten about it.