Vermont is said to be sitting on over $42 Million in abandoned/ unclaimed property (uncashed certified checks/money orders, dormant bank accounts, and refunds) that are never redeemed.
By law, Banks and insurance companies are required to give the money to the state if they cannot find its owner. This is supposed to make it easier for people to find all the money is that owed to them in one place.
To see if Vermont go to:
http://www.vermonttreasurer.gov/unclaimed/index.html
Outside of Vermont:
http://www.missingmoney.org/
Simply enter your name and state and search. To check for relatives, you can just enter your last name and state and it will bring up all people with the same last name.
However, it appears by the growing amount of money being unclaimed that most people don’t know they have money waiting for them, or they don’t care, or they may find it to difficult to claim?
Wallace Nolen, a Barre, Vermont resident, has stated that the state and banks are not doing enough to get the money back to the rightfull owners.
Nolen contends that Vermont’s program is as insufficient, and keeping the money for the state is a powerful incentive not to locate its owners. Lists could be posted in more locations and official mailings sent to people before and after their money goes to the state, he said.
I’m not sure why the state cannot simply mail the payment or notice to people as they have their addresses on file.
I can certainly see that there would be a great incentive for the state to not have people claim the money as while the money is in their possession they can spend it or invest it to make more money for the state. For example, with $42 million dollars, they could invest the money in quality bonds at 6% earning an extra $2.52 million/year… not bad.
If the concern for notifying people of their unclaimed money is costs, the state could use part of the $2.52 million to locate the people and provide them their money and bank the remainder to help pay for future expenses of dispursing unclaimed funds or the state could charge a fee to cover the costs per claim.
August 12, 2008 @ 12:00 am
You may have heard about the unclaimed assets from State Treasurer Jeb Spaulding on recent radio advertisements begging people to take it off his hands. Despite the earnest plea, many Vermonters, for whatever reason, haven’t bothered to see if they’re owed something.
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Jenilia
Vermont Treatment Centers
August 12, 2008 @ 12:00 am
Yes, I’ve seen the ads… but couldn’t that money be put towards locating the people directly? I think many people tune out the ads on tv, they work more subliminal in that you may subconsciously hear them and then subconsciously remember them when at a store or when you need for a product or service arises.
It wouldn’t be difficult to locate people or to just send them their money. I’ve looked over the database and many of the people listed are still at those same addresses that they have in their system. Why can’t the state simply send them their money?
November 13, 2008 @ 12:00 am
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lauran
vermont drug rehab
January 30, 2009 @ 12:00 am
I can only think of a couple really good reasons why the government doesn’t notify people.
#1 – Interest free loan
#2 – In idaho after 10 years the state takes it for themselves
#3 – It costs real money to locate many many people