Category: Find

Or, for yourself or another adult, if somebody put money in trust for you, and you haven’t claimed it yet. Many thanks to Mary Pitman, author of the Little Book of Missing Money, where I first saw this information.
Mary says that when a bank serves as a trustee and holds money for somebody, the account has a particular format:
•The first line is the name of the bank.
•The second line says FBO, which stands for “For the Benefit of” or “FAO” which stands for “For the Account of. Next comes the beneficiary’s name. So this line might say, FBO “Elisabeth Leamy” if I were a trust fund baby.
•The third and fourth lines are the mailing address of the bank, not the individual, because the bank, as trustee, receives correspondence on behalf of the beneficiary.
The problem is that when an account formatted like this becomes unclaimed property, it shows up in a state’s unclaimed money database in a wonky way. Since the bank’s name is first, THAT’s what shows up in the name field! So searching your own name won’t work because unclaimed money databases only scan the name field and your name isn’t in the name field. The bank’s is! So where DOES your name end up? The “FBO Elisabeth Leamy” would be on the next line, which is the address line in most or all state unclaimed money databases.
What to do? Mary has several tips:
•Try searching the name of banks you know your family used and then weeding through them to see if your name is in the address section.
•Try searching the words “for the benefit of” or the abbreviation FBO or FAO in the last name field.
•Also in the last name field, you could try entering common trust terminology: Trust, Trustee, irrevocable trust, revokable trust, Trust fund, Family trust, etc. Then, look for your own name in the other fields of the accounts you find.
To give you an idea, I went to MissingMoney.com and tried entering the word “Trust” in the last name field and got more than 200 results. I also experimented with “irrevocable trust” and found more than 25 accounts.
Yes, this is more work than a normal search, but it’s a treasure hunt and well worth it if you’ve always heard the lore that there used to be money in your family.

One of the biggest battles is getting people to actually conduct a search for their money, even though it only takes 5 minutes and 1 in 10 of us has unclaimed money out there.  So a smart unclaimed money entrepreneur decided to go where the people are: on their phones!  Please welcome Nick Anderson, CEO of Ironwood Recovery back to Easy Money. 

Nick, you joined me on Episode 51 to talk about the tricky unclaimed money cases you tackle for people.  And you were super polite and waited until the very end to mention that you had a new app coming out that helps people locate their unclaimed money.  The app is called iRecovery.  How long has it been available, Nick?

OK, so I’m going to have you walk us through the app, to show people how simple it makes it to find and claim your money.  First off, what does it take to create an account?  Anything complicated or sensitive?

No, we make it really easy and just ask for a name, email address and for you to create a password.

Next, you click the “Discover” button and what information do you have to put in to do the actual search?

iRecovery asks you for your first and last name and your city and state.

And I noticed, you can leave the city box blank and the app will still search for you.  Why might that be an advantage?

Yes, that way, if you’ve lived in lots of different cities in one state, iRecovery will search ALL of them for you.

Fortunately, California has the biggest population of any state and many people more there for a little while in search of some fun in the sun.  So back to the app.  If iRecovery finds something for you, what do you do next?

You click on the unclaimed money account listed, and it opens up to tell you more about it.  You’ll see the street address the account is associated with, so you’ll immediately have a good idea whether it’s yours or not.  You’ll see which company reported the unclaimed money.  And California is one of the few states that tells you, right online, how much unclaimed money you have waiting.  So our app is able to tell you that too.

How do you and Ironwood get paid?

WE CHARGE A MINIMAL PROCESSING FEE THAT IS CONTINGENT ON THE PAYMENT OF YOUR CLAIM. IF YOU DON’T RECEIVE ANYTHING, NEITHER DO WE.

A mutual insurance company is one that is owned by its policyholders. So when you take out a policy, you are buying a tiny portion of the company and get to share in the profits of the company in the form of dividends or reduced insurance premiums. Insurance demutualization is when a company owned by its customers transforms into a publicly traded stock company. Maybe the most recognizable mutual insurance company is Mutual of Omaha, famous for sponsoring the Wild Kingdom TV show in the 1960s through 80s.
That one is still a mutual company, but more than 200 US-based mutual insurance companies have demutualized since 1930. They include biggies like John Hancock, Metlife, Mutual of New York and Prudential. Now here’s where it gets interesting: When those companies demutualized, they had to buy out their policyholder-owners. But many policyholders didn’t realize they were owned money because over the years they had always gotten discounts on their premiums rather than dividend checks.
In fact, on Episodes 1 and 2 of Easy Money, I interviewed Spencer Hathaway, who I helped find several different unclaimed money accounts, and 2 of the biggest he found were available because of insurance company demutualizations.
The rest of the story is that Spencer had let his policy lapse, when he bailed out of the fraternity, and he STILL got $600 in unclaimed money from it!! Remember, most of these demutualizations occurred between 1930 and 2001. That’s a long time span when you or your family may have owned a policy. So be sure to check MissingMoney.com and unclaimed.org to see if you and yours are owed any unclaimed money from insurance demutualizations.

Search for your unclaimed money: missingmoney.com

Find your unclaimed property: www.unclaimed.org

Many states keep only their more recent records online, so asking for a search of older records could be just the ticket. This tip came from Steve Mondros of New Jersey who has made a hobby out of searching for unclaimed money.

Now, if you live in a place for a while, it’s easy to see how you might forget that you put up this chunk of money, a utility deposit, all so you could stay warm or cool or take showers. Some people put down a deposit for home phone service too, but I hesitate to even mention that because it sounds so quaint. Anyway… utility deposits are a common form of unclaimed money. You get a new job offer or a new apartment and are so wrapped up in moving tables that you leave money on the table. So, think back, did you ever pay a utility deposit? Better yet, just do a quick search and see. Your utility has to turn this money over to the state where you live or lived after 3 to 5 years. As always, you can search 40 states for free by going to MissingMoney.com. You can search the other 10 at unclaimed.org. Yes, .org. If you find a lost utility deposit, please will you share the good news? I look forward to hearing from you.

Search for your unclaimed money: missingmoney.com

Find your unclaimed property: www.unclaimed.org

OK, back to overpaid property taxes. Super common as a form of unclaimed money. Think about it: Oftentimes your mortgage company collects extra money from you and uses it to pay your property taxes. The jargon is that they “escrow” this money or “hold it in escrow” to pay your taxes.

But, I know my husband and I used to receive a statement from the city government informing us of the amount of our property tax bill, even if we didn’t pay it directly. In tiny print there was a notification that our mortgage lender had “requested the bill.” Which is government speak for requested and paid. But the notice looks like a bill and it’s easy to miss or misconstrue those words about requesting the bill. SO, some people end up paying their property tax themselves, even though their mortgage company has already collected money from them and paid it. Voila! Double payment.

In addition, many lenders, once you have at least 20 percent equity in your home, will allow you to pay your own property taxes directly. Some people like to do this so they can keep that money invested until it’s time to pay. But switching over from having the mortgage company pay the property taxes to doing it yourself also creates another opportunity for there to be missing money hanging out there. The chances are high that the mortgage company already collected some escrow money before you switched over to self-payment. In this case, the mortgage company would be the one to turn the unclaimed funds over to your state.

So there you have it, one potential source of unclaimed funds that can happen even if you think you’d never lose track of your money.

I covered unclaimed money for sororities in episode 54, so now giving equal time to the guys. I had to recall the names of some fraternities so I could search for unclaimed money for them to give you some examples. That made me think of my college boyfriend… and THAT made me google him. …And that, in turn, had me off in the weeds checking out all my other old boyfriends. And THAT made me happy I’m married to my husband. All when I should have been prepping for this show.

But, I digress. My college boyfriend was an SAE. Sigma Alpha Epsilon, I think? So I searched for unclaimed money for the SAE house for old times’ sake. First I tried my usual free website starting point, MissingMoney.com, and found 88 listings for Sigma Alpha Epsilon. That’s even more than the Tri-delts had, so I guess frat boys are even less organized than sorority girls and lost track of a bunch of accounts. There were accounts in Tallahassee, Florida. That would be the Florida State, SAE’s, I guess. Ames Iowa, Iowa State. Evanstaon Illinois which has to be Northwestern. That’s where I went to grad school, by the way.

Next I searched California’s own unclaimed money database. Nothing for the Berkeley SAEs that I knew, but more than a thousand bucks for the SAEs in Sherman Oaks, California. I also checked Sigma Alpha Epsilon in Texas, because it seems like a Greek system state, and up popped a different fraternity, Alpha Chi Sigma, from the University of Austin. Those brothers must have been really wasted because they are missing a matured certificate of deposit —or CD— now being held by the state that is worth more than $23-thousand dollars!

YEAH, I found this in 5 minutes and this is the kind of money you might find for your fraternity. So check MissingMOney.com and unclaimed.org to see. Just type the full name of the fraternity into the Last name box. And then try different combinations in the first AND last name boxes. Need motivation? Just think of all the beer $23-thousand dollars could buy!

Search for your unclaimed money: missingmoney.com

Find your unclaimed property: www.unclaimed.org

Remind me how you first heard about Easy Money?
From reading your column in the Washington Post.

And, Knowles, at what point did you take my challenge and do an unclaimed money search for yourself and your family?
When I first heard your podcast, I searched.

I know you found some money for yourself and for your mom. Tell me about your own unclaimed money first. Where was it and what was it from?
I found some for myself in Virginia.

How much was it?
$34.50!

You found more than that for your mother. Where was hers?
The District of Columbia. My Mom died in the District 2 years ago.

Yes, I live in DC and it is famous —or infamous— for it’s bureaucracy. Do you feel like you had to jump through too many hoops?
I guess my question is, do these offices really want to give the money back? They don’t make it very easy!

OK, Knowles. Everybody’s curious. How much was the missing money of your mom’s that you found?
Nearly a thousand dollars!

Hello, pledges! How “in” with the sisters would you be if you found money that belonged to the house? All you do is go to MissingMoney.com OR unclaimed.org —Note that’s .org— and type the name of the sorority into the last name box or try different combinations in the first AND last name boxes.

I did an experiment myself. I was a member of Tri-Delt, when I was at Berkeley, before I, ahem, deactivated —which sounds so weird. (I just wasn’t the sorority type, but they were great women….) Anyway, Delta, Delta, Delta can I help ya help ya help ya with 62 different unclaimed money accounts in multiple states? I found those on MissingMoney. Then I searched in California, because it actually lists the amounts of unclaimed money owed. California had 18 accounts for the Tri-Delts in LA and Stockton. None in Berkeley. Maybe the Berkeley Tri-Delts are too brainy to lose their money? But anyway, the unclaimed money accounts for Tri-Delts in California ranged from 57 cents on up to $2,198… with several in between. That’s just one sorority. Were you a DG? Or a Kappa? Or a Theta? Take 5 minutes to search for unclaimed money for your sisters and make their day! And, of course, in the spirit of equal timne, in the next few shows I will search for some fraternities and see what I can find for the frat boys!

Search for your unclaimed money: missingmoney.com

Find your unclaimed property: www.unclaimed.org

States first became the custodians of unclaimed money back in the 1960s or so. Their argument was that they were more trustworthy than businesses when it came to safeguarding citizens lost accounts.

Back then, the states would let dormant accounts sit there for a good long time —maybe ten years— before considering them unclaimed money and forcing banks and other financial firms to turn the money over to the state. But soon state legislators realized holding unclaimed money was a benefit to THEM, not just you. They deposited these millions or billions worth of unclaimed funds in interest bearing accounts and the STATE’s kept the interest. At first they used the interest just for good causes like education and crime fighting.

But then, like so many things, the original, pure purpose eroded. States started using the PRINCIPAL, not just the interest to pay for things. And they started using it to plug gaps in their general fund rather than just for special, select programs like education.
The states got addicted to these big pots of money and wanted more! They started shortening the number of years before dormant accounts were considered unclaimed. In California, for example, financial firms used to have to turn unclaimed accounts over after 10 years. Then the state shortened that to 7 years. Then to 3 years. There was even legislation trying to shorten the time period to 1 year! Ridiculous! If you didn’t interact with a financial account of yours for a year, would it really be lost or unclaimed? Unlikely. Luckily, that effort failed and California stayed with the 3-year plan.

Why am I telling you all this? SO you can keep an eye on your state AND on your accounts. Make sure to do something to keep them active at least once a year.