Mixing politics with unclaimed property.
It has happened before and here it is again. A State Treasurer advertising unclaimed property in an attempt to get his name and face into public view.
North Carolina State Treasurer Richard Moore is contemplating running for governor. This is not uncommon, we all want to move up in our jobs.
Currently he is using escheat money to pay for television ads to raise awareness of the escheat fund. What is the escheat fund? It is a pool of unclaimed money from abandoned bank accounts, unclaimed utility deposits and other sources.
One of the more interesting things about the ads is his name and face dominate the ad which urges viewers to do a search for unclaimed property.
The amount of escheat money used for the first two weeks of ads was $230,000.
Good news for the public, people are finding and collecting their money. Last year the treasurer’s office returned a record $40 million. The fund has about $500 million in it now and the interest on the money pays for college scholarships.
Politically there is controversy over Moore’s use of state money to promote himself. Moore is a Democrat and the current Republican office holders do not have as many opportunities to use public money for such ads.
You can do your share in helping by claiming any unclaimed money owed to you. Even if you are not a North Carolina resident, but had business dealings in the state you could find money. CashUnclaimed.com is a company formed to assist people in finding lost funds in all state and government data bases. There is one entry of you name and a comprehensive search is done. Since 9 out of 10 Americans are owed a part of the Billions of dollars being held, it is likely that you have unclaimed cash.
