dory36
Early-Retirement.org Founder, Developer of FIRECal
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2002
- Messages
- 1,841
Lots of us have moved a lot. Few of us thought we had left money behind as we moved. A couple of months ago, my son sent me a link for an association of state agencies that dealt with unclaimed property, and said he had seen my name on some of the lists while searching for his own.
Every state has an office that by law must be given unclaimed insurance refunds, unreturned security deposits, and so forth. They are supposed to maintain these funds and return them to the original owners when they are found -- at no charge. (Not to be confused with outfits that search these records, then try to get people to pay them for the info.)
Each state (or at least all the ones I checked) has a searchable online database, and provisions for you to say, "Hey, that's me" and claim your refund.
In my case, I found an insurance refund from North Carolina from over a decade ago (about $150) and a forgotten security deposit from Missouri from the 1980s (about $380) where I had moved out before the lease was up and thought I had forfeited the deposit.
In both cases, I had to print their form, have it notarized, and send a copy of a drivers license. For Missouri, I had to send something that showed I really lived at the address in question -- and a page from my credit report showing past residences was sufficient.
I got the North Carolina check in about 3-4 weeks, and the Missouri check in about 6-7 weeks.
The link is http://www.unclaimed.org/mainframe.asp?VisitorType=owner -- click on "Find property" and you'll get to a page where you can go directly to the state agency for the relevant state.
Hope you have some luck!
dory36
Every state has an office that by law must be given unclaimed insurance refunds, unreturned security deposits, and so forth. They are supposed to maintain these funds and return them to the original owners when they are found -- at no charge. (Not to be confused with outfits that search these records, then try to get people to pay them for the info.)
Each state (or at least all the ones I checked) has a searchable online database, and provisions for you to say, "Hey, that's me" and claim your refund.
In my case, I found an insurance refund from North Carolina from over a decade ago (about $150) and a forgotten security deposit from Missouri from the 1980s (about $380) where I had moved out before the lease was up and thought I had forfeited the deposit.
In both cases, I had to print their form, have it notarized, and send a copy of a drivers license. For Missouri, I had to send something that showed I really lived at the address in question -- and a page from my credit report showing past residences was sufficient.
I got the North Carolina check in about 3-4 weeks, and the Missouri check in about 6-7 weeks.
The link is http://www.unclaimed.org/mainframe.asp?VisitorType=owner -- click on "Find property" and you'll get to a page where you can go directly to the state agency for the relevant state.
Hope you have some luck!
dory36
