Claim Your Cash, One Bank Account at a Time
Inactive bank accounts are one of the major contributors to the unclaimed cash with which U.S. state treasury is overflowing. States neither can use this huge unclaimed cash nor can dispose it off. States can only wait for the rightful owners of the unclaimed cash to come forward, stake claim and take away what is theirs.
Bank accounts and banking activities are contributing to the rising mound of unclaimed property. Savings accounts that are not properly closed or left inactive are turning out to be the major cause of concern. Banks in the U.S. are holding many accounts that are dormant. The number of checks that are not redeemed and forgotten are moreso a concern for the banks.
Did You Close Your Bank Accounts Properly?
This huge cash from forgotten bank accounts results from the negligence of the people. 9 out of 10 Americans are having one or the other kind of unclaimed cash in his or her name. So, it is most likely that you are also one among those who left bank account inoperative for long. If you are not sure about this, ask yourself the following questions.
Did you move from one town to another?
Did you inform the bank about the closure of the account?
Did you collect the balance from the account?
Did you cash all the checks to and from the account?
Did you inform the bank about your new address?
Chances are that you did not bother to do all this and carry out proper process of account closure.
Claim Your Cash Now
If you want to claim the cash that is yours, the time is not lost. Contact the bank where you held the account and ask for this process to be followed. Inform them about your new address or the new bank details where they can send the check for balance amount. If you have such accounts at more than one branch, follow the process at one bank account at a time, and then move on to another. This will allow you to concentrate your efforts and clear pending things speedily.
However, this is possible only in the case your bank accounts have not been operative for less than five years. If the period of inaction is more than that, your account is declared dormant. Generally, after an account becomes inoperative, banks inform the holder about this; however, if you have moved out to another town, and not informed the bank about the new address, then you are less likely to receive the notice. In such case, banks are bound by the law to return the account balance to the state treasurer.
If you are not sure whether you left any bank account unclosed, you can search the database on www.cashunclaimed.com and find out any unclaimed cash in your name not only from the bank account but also from any other source like ancestral property, utility deposits, payroll checks, dividends, insurance, etc. States are encouraging citizens to come forward and take the money that is rightfully theirs.
