This one is really more about claiming yours. The government doesn’t always make it easy to get your unclaimed money back.
The positive spin on this is that the bureaucrats want to make sure they don’t give the money to the wrong person. The cynical view is that they’re reluctant to part with your money because they’re using it on various government programs.
So, whether it’s federal or state, county or city, you usually have to jump through some hoops to get your money back. Many people give up when the bean counters start asking for paperwork proving the unclaimed money is theirs. You may be asked for proof of an address where you live 40 years ago. Or they might ask you for the account number of the credit union where you banked way back when. Or to verify that you really did work at the company that turned over your unclaimed paycheck.
Who keeps records like that? The credit bureaus, that’s who! This is a terrific trick! If you have to produce ancient financial records in order to claim your missing money, order your free credit reports from all 3 credit bureaus and one of them is likely to have the information in its database! This has worked for several friends of mine.
To order your free credit reports, just go to AnnualCreditReport.com. That is the one and only site mandated by congress to give each of us one free credit report a year. I’ll say it again AnnualCreditReport.com —not some other site that advertises heavily. I’ll also provide a hyper link from my site, EasyMoneyShow.com, so you can be sure to go to the right spot.
