Unclaimed Property Blog

There are many stories of how people have claimed their unclaimed cash or property. They are the stories that put a smile on your face and may make you wonder if it can happen to you. Here is a story that may make you laugh out loud. This is how not to claim unclaimed money.

A Jordanian salesman was arrested for forgery and attempted embezzlement in Dubai this week after using a doctored identification card. The doctoring of an ID card is not new; however, this salesman used a photo of Brad Pitt.

Great news for many as the VA laptop computer has been found. Yes, the missing laptop and hard drive that contained veterans’ personal information has been found. To date there also has not been any report of identity theft concerning those whose confidential data was on the computer.

The announcement was made at the beginning of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing on Thursday the 28th of June.

The information was confirmed by the deputy attorney general. The statement that the law enforcement has in their possession the laptop and hard drive is a relief to millions of veterans.

Indiana is once again making more attempts to contact people that have unclaimed property. The state does want to give this money back to the rightful owner.

For various reasons money does get turned over to the state. The laws on unclaimed property vary from state to state as to what is to be turned over to the state and the time limits to turn in unclaimed assets.

In Indiana financial institutions and other holders are required to turn over assets of accounts that have had five or seven (depending on the type of account) years of inactivity. After 25 years, unclaimed funds become subject to the general fund.

Enough is enough, when is it going to stop? You would think security would be beefed up, however, two more government laptops containing sensitive personal data is taken.

The sad thing on this theft is that it is the government agency charged with fighting identity theft that had the two laptops taken. The car theft occurred about 10 days ago. This time the managers were immediately notified. It may be safe to assume that someone learned the lesson of not waiting to tell authorities about the theft.

Today’s retirement trends are changing. Are you saving savvy?

The conclusion per two recent studies are that Americans are over confident, have grossly under estimated the amount of money they will spend during retirement years as well as having a warped expectation of how much pensions and Social Security will provide. The end result of these rose colored glasses is that we have not saved enough for retirement.

These results shouldn’t be so surprising, media and experts have been telling us to save since the 1980s when 401(k) plans came into being and companies started shifting retirement savings responsibility onto the workers.

Remember back in March when VantageScore was introduced? Well now it is available online. For $5.95, Internet users will be able to check their VantageScores online through Experian. Experian is of three U.S. credit reporting bureaus that jointly developed the system.

This is the first time the VantageScores have been made available to the public.

VantageScore was introduced in March by the three major credit reporting agencies; Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. This system was being promoted as a simpler scoring method because it uses a single formula to evaluate consumer’s debt risk profile. Under FICO, each credit bureau uses a different method for calculating a consumer’s debt risk.

More recently it isn’t just the public that are being targeted with personal information theft, but companies as well. This is the reason behind some of Silicon Valley’s technology heavyweights uniting to create national laws to protect citizens and companies alike.

Current laws vary from state to state and then there are some federal rules added to these to create much confusion and inconsistency in dealing with identity theft.

EBay, Hewlett-Packard, Google, Intel, Oracle, Sun Microsystems and Microsoft are some of the near dozen companies stepping into the privacy fight after years of shying away from a broad law. The group called the Consumer Privacy Legislative Forum has come together during the last few months.

With the recent news of Government, companies and schools loosing confidential data you may ave begun to wonder if anything is safe anymore. Read on for information on what to do.

It may have already happened to you. A letter or phone call from your bank or alma mater, stating that a hacker broke into the system and your information was on the computer. Perhaps it was the stolen laptop a company employee took home which has compromised sensitive data on thousands of people, and that you could be among them. What should you do?

Recently there have been stories about Government agencies having their computer data stolen. The latest victim is one of the three major credit bureau companies.

It was announced that an Equifax Inc. company laptop containing employee names and Social Security numbers was stolen from an employee while traveling by train near London .

The data stolen could affect as many as 2,500 of the Atlanta-based company’s 4,600 employees. Information to hand states that the theft happened May 29th and all employees were notified June 7th.

Those with children often wonder about allowances for their children. Here is something in regards to how much to give your child.

There are many schools of thought on this one. Is a dollar for each year of age appropriate or should they be given tasks with dollar values? Also, some children will promote receiving the amount that their friends get. None of these ideas or suggestions are of much help as they are not based on usage.

The best approach in figuring out an allowance is figuring out what the financial needs of the child are. Sounds pretty grown up, but consider that you already give them money and perhaps more than if they were on an allowance.