(DailyChive.com) – There is a chance that a large sum of money is sitting unclaimed and ready to go for you. It sounds like a dream come true, but there are sums of unclaimed money that might be of value to you, and you should make an effort to claim your stake in the money due to you.
How Could I Have Unclaimed Money?
The first question posed by many people when confronted with the possibility of having unclaimed money out there is how this is even possible in the first place. It turns out that there are many different types of unclaimed money floating around out there just waiting for its owner to claim. Often, these piles of money get caught up somewhere in the bureaucracy of trying to get those funds to the proper individuals. A few examples of the types of unclaimed money that might be available to you include:
- Stocks
- Abandoned checking and savings accounts
- Traveler’s checks
- Refunds
- Utility security deposits
- Certificates of deposit
- Mineral royalty payments
- Annuities
These, and many other types of property are all potentially waiting for you to claim them.
Is it Common to Have Unclaimed Property?
Believe it or not, it is far more common to have unclaimed property waiting on you. The National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators estimates that roughly 1 in 7 Americans have at least some unclaimed property. In some extreme cases, there are individuals who have massive amounts of unclaimed money just waiting on them. In a case reported on by the New York Times, a South Carolina man claimed roughly $763,000 due to him that he originally thought was a scam. It turned out that the money had been left to him by his father who had passed away 15 years prior. The man didn’t believe it at first, but he followed up with the proper and official channels and ended up receiving that huge sum of money due to him.
While most unclaimed property claims are for amounts nowhere near that large, any amount of unclaimed property is something potentially worth investigating further. Every bit of it matters.
How to Claim Your Unclaimed Property
The million-dollar question for many people is how they can go about claiming their unclaimed property. They want to get their hands on the unclaimed money and property due to them. There are different places to turn to depend on which type of unclaimed property you are looking to claim. USA.gov provides the following recommendations about where you should turn to when you are looking for unclaimed property:
- State’s Unclaimed Property Office – Every state has an unclaimed property office. Many of these offices have put a search tool on the website that they operate for this office. This makes life easier for people who are interested in searching for unclaimed property that may be due to them.
- Department of Labor database – This is a great resource for looking for unpaid wages from employers. There may be some backed pay or other money due to you that is eventually sent to the Department of Labor. You can speak with them to lay your claim to money that may be due to you there.
- Tax Refunds – You can travel to the IRS government website to search for your tax refund (if one is due to you). The part of their website where you can find this information is under the “Where’s my refund?” section of the IRS government website.
These are just some sources where you can potentially lay your claim to unclaimed money due to you. Keep this in mind when looking over the possible places where you can claim some unclaimed money.
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