Question, lost stock certificate

[Venturer]

Good morning. My DD was over last evening with DGD visiting. Sitting around the table playing cards & chatting DD mentioned that she may have a problem. Many years ago she worked part time for large retail establishment WM while in high school and collage. She bought and was awarded some stock shares during this time. She said she had the actual stock certificate and put it up---somewhere? She didn't say how many and I didn't ask but she said she probably is screwed now because her last name is now different and she doesn't know how to go about possibly getting another copy of the certificate. I'll admit I don't know either but possibly some here might give me a clue to help her? Thanks

 

[MRG]

She doesn't need the certificate, certificates get lost all the time. She does need to call the transfer agent(equiserve?) with her TIN. The master record/row for the issue/account has counter for total shares/certificated shares/non-certificated shares.
Back when certificated shares were common the transfer agency would reprint them, I'm not sure you can even get an authentic replacement cert today. Maintaining software to print those things was a great big PIA.

 

[Scrapr]

Yes...what MRG said. BITD I had 1 stock certificate & the rest electronic. About 2 years ago I decided to get it dealt with. My other shares were held with Computershare so I contacted them. They may have had a link on their website. They tracked it down & put it in my account. Took a couple weeks(?) I was dreading it but it turned out pretty well

 

[RE2Boys]

OP, has she been receiving the quarterly dividends? If the investment was in Wal-Mart, they have been paying dividends for a long time. If she has not been receiving them, she should check with her state's escheat bureau as the company may have turned the unclaimed dividend to the state listed as her last known address.

 

[Venturer]

OP, has she been receiving the quarterly dividends? If the investment was in Wal-Mart, they have been paying dividends for a long time. If she has not been receiving them, she should check with her state's escheat bureau as the company may have turned the unclaimed dividend to the state listed as her last known address.

I don't know but I will ask her. She didn't say and I didn't ask how many she had but I'll let her know about these answers. She is 45 now so if WM has been paying dividends she might be pleasantly surprised. I'll let y'all know the outcome. Thanks again to all.

 

[albireo13]

I just went through this with Computershare.
We had the paper certificates ourselves but, couldn't find them anymore. I contacted Computershare and they put a hold/freeze on the original certificates. I then will get new certificates generated for me. There is a charge of +$100 for this.

 

[ERD50]

I just went through this with Computershare.
We had the paper certificates ourselves but, couldn't find them anymore. I contacted Computershare and they put a hold/freeze on the original certificates. I then will get new certificates generated for me. There is a charge of +$100 for this.

Why in the world would you want to hold paper certificates (and pay for the 'privilege'!)?

You've already demonstrated one problem, you can misplace them.

Do your heir/executors a favor, and get them converted to electronic and hold them in a brokerage account. I had to deal with my FIL's paper stocks when he passed, plus some held at the transfer agent. It was a fair amount of additional work, two different transfer agents to deal with, plus dragging my MIL to a Fidelity B&M office to get them all converted, which was complicated by the fact that we had to get things converted to his new EIN (in place of SSN) before we could do anything.

It would have been a lot harder if I hadn't done a fair amount of research to figure out how to do it. Several sites had you mailing them in, and insuring them, all of which adds time/$ to the process. It all requires a Medallion signature, which can be difficult to obtain (Fidelity accommodated us, as they were receiving them, and we were there in person). Basically, the Medallion signature has them on the hook for the transaction, not just identifying that you are who you say you are.

I don't recall if there were any fees involved at all, maybe some minor ones at the transfer agent (like single digit $ per stock - something small if anything).

-ERD50