New York is Reaching out to Citizen to Collect Their Unclaimed Cash
New York is sitting on billions all in unclaimed cash. If the fact sheet provided by the Office of Unclaimed Funds of New York State Comptroller is to be believed, then there is no doubt that the New York State has taken the unclaimed funds seriously and is pursuing all efforts in reaching out to citizens and asking them to collect their unclaimed cash.
Since the late forties, New York State has collected $10.5 billion of unclaimed cash and forgotten property from 25 million accounts. In last one year alone, the state has received $653 million in the form of unclaimed cash. The state processed 360,000 accounts and paid out about $227 million of lost funds to its owners. The largest personal account that gained from the state’s efforts was an individual who received over $4 million. The largest amount that is still unclaimed is $1.7 million for one individual.
State Safeguards Unclaimed Property
As per the consumer protection features of the State law, banks, insurance companies, utilities, investment companies and many other businesses are required to surrender inactive, lost, forgotten and unclaimed accounts to the state treasurer. The Office of the State Comptroller serves as custodian for this money waiting for the owners to come forward. If a citizen can prove that he/she is the rightful owner and entitled to the money, New York state officials are glad to return it to him/her at any given time without any charge.
Advantage New York Citizens
New York State’s Office of Unclaimed Funds has launched new Online Claiming Program that is a fast, easy and secure way to claim your lost money. This program accepts online claims for many types of accounts if the information provided by the claimant matches government records. Citizens also have the option of submitting the claims by mail. They can complete the claim form online, print it and mail it in to the State comptroller’s office
The Office of Unclaimed Funds has published completely revised Handbook for Reporters of Unclaimed Funds. As per the Comptroller’s office, this handbook displays new format that is very useful, informative and user-friendly. This handbook provides general information for all reporters and industry-specific information in several, separate documents, each of which contains only information pertinent to reports in a specific industry.
The office is also ready to offer online help for unclaimed funds. The official website offers navigation to a particular help topic by selecting a link in menu form the Table of Contents. Visitors can also select the search button and enter search words to get a list of matching topics.
These features are bearing result and more than 9 million searches are conducted annually. Communication center at the office handles over 100,000 calls annually regarding unclaimed cash queries. New Yorkers are free to contact the office anytime for help.
Interested citizens can also visit www.cashunclaimed.com. It is one of the largest databases of unclaimed cash in the world. Conducting online search through this websites is one of the easiest methods of searching unclaimed cash in anybody’s name.
