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EPISODE 44 ~ FIND YOURS: Boy Scouts: Find Money For Your Favorite Scout Troop

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Hundreds or even thousands of boy scout and cub scout troops across the country are owed unclaimed money.  That is our find yours topic for today.

Many thanks to the Bryan on Scouting blog, where I first spotted this information.  I have told you before how to search for unclaimed money for religious groups, charities and schools.  I hadn’t thought to look for scouts.  But now I have and this is great inspiration for anyone who’s been putting off a search for themselves or an organization they’re involved with.

I chose to search the state of California unclaimed money database because it’s one of the only ones that tells you, right online, how much unclaimed money there is for somebody.  And what a bonanza!

First I typed “cubscout” as one word into the last name field and got 9 hits.  Cubscout troops in Vacaville, Santee and Pasadena California each have $100 worth of unclaimed money.  Troop 301 in Fresno California has a total of 6 unclaimed money accounts with the state!

Then I typed in cub. scout.  Two words and I got another 10 pages worth of results.  That’s a good reminder to always try every different spelling of your name or the group’s name  Using the separate words cub and scout, I found unclaimed money for boys in California from A to Z, literally!  —Alameda to Tarzana.

Next, still on JUST the California site, I tried a search for boyscout —all one word— and got 5 hits.  Then, I tried the proper spelling, with boy and scout as separate words and got another 11 pages of unclaimed money listing and each page contains 25 accounts!

And some of those accounts are BIG!  For example, in 5 minutes of searching, I found out that General Electric turned over $2,500 for the Boy Scouts of America.  And Troop 223 in Pacific Palisades California is owed $3,535!

Here’s an idea: If you lead a boy scout or cub scout troop, why not assign your boys this project as a way to earn a merit badge?  Have them search MissingMoney.com and unclaimed.org, just as I did and see how many different unclaimed money accounts they can find for their fellow scouts?

Of course, Easy Money is an equal opportunity podcast, so on another show soon, I will search for unclaimed money for GIRL scouts and let you know what I find!

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EPISODE 42~ FIND YOURS: Missing Money: Beware of Unclaimed Money Scams That Try To Take Your Money Instead of Giving It To You

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Let’s talk about our actual “find yours” topic for today: unclaimed money scams.  Fraudsters who try to get in on the unclaimed money goodness.  The National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators or ‘NAUPA” is warning that scammers have been taking the group’s name in vain and trying to take YOUR money.

NAUPA is made up of government folks from every state department that works to return people’s unclaimed money.   So, needless to say, they were not happy about this.  The association posted a fake letter on its website to warn and educated people about the scam and I will link you to that page from EasyMoneyShow.com/42 so you can see for yourself.

The letter claims to alert people to an unclaimed sweepstakes listing in their name.  I have never heard of sweepstakes winnings being turned over as unclaimed money.  Clearly a scam. 

So what are the bad guys after?  In the sweepstakes letter they claim you have won $750,000, but that you owe taxes of $112,500.  That’s their hook, their way of extracting money from victims.  They are hoping you will pay them the hundred-grand-plus before you notice they haven’t paid you ANYTHING.   

This fraudulent letter even MENTIONS scams in an attempt to head off any concerns recipients may have.  Here’s a quote: “It is very important to stay alert for sweepstakes scams, however it is also equally important not to let your win pass you by because of things that might seem a little strange but are actually  a normal part of the award registration process.”  The letter goes on to advise people not to tell anyone about their win.  That’s probably an attempt to keep you from reporting this to the authorities.  Clever in an evil sort of way!

The letter appears to be on official NAUPA stationery, which is part of the hoax, but a telltale tip off to this ripoff are lots of subtle spelling and grammar errors.  For example, one line in the letter mistakenly says “After taxes you are entitled to receive AND amount of $450,000.”

So, what can we learn from this? 

  1. You should know that NAUPA never contacts people about unclaimed money.  It is just an association that government unclaimed money employees belong to, where they trade information about best practices for administering and returning unclaimed money.
  2. If you receive a letter from ANYONE claiming you have unclaimed money out there somewhere, you should ignore their requests for a cut of the cash and do a search yourself.  As always, the 2 FREE sites where you can find 90 percent of unclaimed money are MissingMoney.com and unclaimed.org.
  3. And finally, you should know that when you do claim legitimate unclaimed money, you are NEVER asked to pay taxes of fees to collect that money.  Ever.

Stay alert, people!

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EPISODE 19 ~ FIND YOURS: Unclaimed Money: Find Missing Money For Your Business

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We begin today with our find yours segment.  I’ve told you that small businesses often have larger pots of unclaimed money out there waiting for them than individuals do.  Not as many accounts, but bigger accounts.  My next guest found that out first hand when he was able to find unclaimed money for his business.  Please welcome Chris Miller of West Virginia to the program.  Hi Chris!

Chris, first tell us what type of business you run there in West Virginia.

Chris Miller is a local car dealership owner.  The dealership is called Dutch Miller Auto and they have several locations in West Virginia, including Charleston.

You received a sizable amount of unclaimed money back.  Don’t tell us how much yet, but tell us how you first heard it was out there.

I have always known about unclaimed property but being busy it isn’t something you think about. The state treasurer’s office contacted me and said we think we have a lot of your unclaimed property.

What did you have to do to claim it?

The gentleman from the state treasurer’s office showed up to the dealership. My mother is house majority whip of the state so I knew he was legit and that his business card was legit. He collected my driver’s license, had me fill out forms and said I will get back to you. He wouldn’t tell me how much money, but he said it was sizable and worth coming to see me!

So he was keeping you in suspense and I want to keep our listeners in suspense a little longer.  The unclaimed money you received, what did the money come from?

I do know what money came from. It had to do with insurance settlements for bodywork, deductible payments, overpayment of taxes. A very long list. It was $187 here. $200 there. And it went back to 1989.

So how did you finally find out how much money was out there for you and your business?

The Treasurer’s office got back in touch with me 4 weeks later and said they had great news. They said ‘We would love to do a check presentation with you.’ We coordinated on our end and we did a check presentation.

Alright, it’s time.  How big was that check they handed you?  How much did you receive?

They handed me a big huge check for $11,162!!!!

And what did you do with the money?

I had contacted the Children’s Home Society of WV and invited them to the check presentation.  It’s a place kids go before they go into foster care when they are in abusive situations. It is underfunded right now because of the opioid epidemic so more kids are getting pulled out.  I donated my unclaimed money to the Children’s Home Society right then and there. I received it and handed it over to them. 

Describe your thinking when you cooked up this plan.  I imagine it was fun to take this money that you didn’t even know you had and do some good with it.

I have been a huge supporter of them. I knew what I wanted to do with the money. These funds will provide more of an opportunity for kids being pulled out of their home to have better access to food, pajamas, shoes, special care, funding of people who work in the organization. Better everything.  This is unclaimed property. You don’t have to pay taxes since it isn’t revenue.  I made a donation which was tax deductible.

That’s not all this experience inspired you to do.  Describe how you started trying to get the word out that other people might have unclaimed money out there too.

I got on radio shows and we had a press conference at the dealership. I wanted to spread the word.  People are very very uninformed about unclaimed property and that is why I wanted to get involved to educate people as much as I could. There is $139 million still sitting unclaimed in the state treasurer’s office.

As a businessman, what drives you crazy about all that money just sitting there?

There is $139 million still sitting unclaimed in the state treasurer’s office.  It could be injected back into the economy, donated to charity.  Every single economy is local. You may not need the money but another group might and you can give to them. The small amount of effort, filling out paperwork and forms – to find out to have extra money to give to someone else in your community who needs it is a no brainer.  Can use the money to do good. It is every single business owner’s obligation to give back to the community they do business in. It is something we should all be doing. If it is $11 or $1,100 or $11,000.

I think some people don’t search for unclaimed money because they think it’s too good to be true.  Or that it’s hard to do.  Is it?

It was incredibly easy. I didn’t have to do much at all. Anybody and everybody in state of WV can find out if they have it. You don’t even have to be the person. If you are an immediate heir you can fill out forms, prove who you are and receive this money.  Get online in whatever state you live in and search unclaimed property. Type in your name, family member’s names, deceased family members names and see if they have unclaimed  property. It is easy and it is free.

In fact, after your PR blitz, other people did start finding their unclaimed money, right?

There was a man that heard us on the air talking about what we were doing and when we had the check presentation later that morning he showed up and had done the same thing and had received several $100 for overpayment of gas bills. And he wrote a check to the same charity we did.

Chris Miller of Dutch Miller Auto —and now an unclaimed money evangelist, thank you so much for speaking with me.

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EPISODE 13 ~ FIND YOURS: Inheritance: Find Missing Money Left By Your Ancestors

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As I’ve been telling you, at least 1 out of every 10 Americans has unclaimed money waiting. It may be hard for you to believe that you could ever misplace your own money. But what about your relatives? Your ancestors? You may be entitled to unclaimed money that they left behind. That’s exactly what happened to Carol Fox.

How did you first get the idea to search the unclaimed money database?
My daughter’s husband, my son in law, told me to look. He does it all the time because he thinks it’s fascinating. So I looked and there was all sorts of money for my mother.

What was the money from and how did it get lost?
Dividends from stock my mother had received as a gift from an aunt and uncle. She got lots of little checks for $5. And she never bothered cashing them, so they became unclaimed property! There were lots of little amounts that added up. She didn’t drive, so depositing it was a hassle for her. Your mother didn’t want to be bothered going to the bank, but she was a retired bank teller, right? I couldn’t believe it! I couldn’t believe that my mother, who had actually worked as bank teller, had let this stuff go. A bank teller who didn’t want to go back to the bank!!!!

You also found a small unclaimed money account for yourself, and your mother was a part of that story, too, right?
Yes, I found a small amount in my own name. From when I lived in California. It was from a life insurance policy. My mother had insisted that I get a policy so that if something happened to me, there would be money to bury me. When I moved to California, my mother never forwarded the dividend checks to me! I found that one under my maiden name. It was from the early 1960s.

Which state was holding the 2 unclaimed money accounts for you and what did it take to claim it?
It was relatively easy but it took a long time. I just had to provide an original death certificate for my mom. I sent the claim in at the end of summer 2016.

Then I started calling in 2016. They were lovely. I got the checks early this year. January and March.

OK, Carol, tell me: how much unclaimed money did you receive back from the state?
$29.58 from my tiny old life insurance policy. And $5940 that belonged to my mother! My sister and I are the survivors. We split the money from mom between us.

I hope that unlike your mom, you cashed those checks when you got them.
What did you do with the money? I spent the $29 on a pedicure!!!!

Perfect, what about the larger amount? What did you and your sister spend it on?
My sister got her house painted. l have been saving mine, but I’m thinking of having my floors refinished.

If you were inspired by Carol’s story and you’d like to search for unclaimed money in the names of relatives who have passed, there are two free websites that I recommend. Start with MissingMoney.com and then check unclaimed.org (note, that’s .org) for the 10 states that don’t participate with MissingMoney.

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EPISODE 9 ~ FIND YOURS: Unclaimed Money: Find it for your school, charity, or church

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HEY, THINK OF THE BROWNIE POINTS YOU’LL BE EARNING WITH YOUR
TEACHER, FELLOW VOLUNTEERS OR MAYBE EVEN SOMEBODY MUCH HIGHER
UP, IF YOU FIND MISSING MONEY FOR YOUR SCHOOL, CHARITY OR CHURCH!
ALL YOU DO IS GO TO THE SAME TWO FREE SEARCH SITES I ALWAYS
RECOMMEND, MISSINGMONEY.COM AND UNCLAIMED.ORG, (YES, .ORG, NOT
.COM. Very important.) THEN EXPERIMENT WITH TYPING THE SCHOOL,
CHURCH OR CHARITY NAME IN IN VARIOUS WAYS. FOR EXAMPLE IF THE
SCHOOL IS CALLED DIXIE SCHOOL, TRY PUTTING DIXIE IN THE FIRST NAME
FIELD AND SCHOOL IN THE LAST NAME FIELD. IF YOU GET NOTHING, TRY
PUTTING BOTH NAMES IN THE LAST NAME FIELD OR FLIPPING THEM.
FOR CHURCHES, TRY PUTTING IN THE CHURCH’S FULL NAME, BUT IF
NOTHING POPS UP, TRY JUST PUTTING THE WORD “CHURCH” IN THE LAST
NAME FIELD. OR TRY BROAD TERMS THAT MIGHT BE IN YOUR CHURCH NAME
LIKE “EPISCOPAL” OR “PRESBYTERIAN.” OR TEMPLE.
SAME IDEA FOR CHARITIES, EXPERIMENT BY PUTTING ALL OR PART OF
THE CHARITY’S NAME INTO THE FIRST AND LAST NAME BOXES AND, IF AT
FIRST YOU DON’T SUCCEED, MIX IT UP.
I PROMISE YOU THIS DOES WORK. FOR A GOOD MORNING AMERICA
SERIES, I MYSELF WAS INVOLVED IN RETURNING:
$10,000 WORTH OF UNCLAIMED MONEY TO A CHURCH IN NEENAH WISCONSIN.
$59-THOUSAND DOLLARS TO AN ANIMAL SHELTER IN MADISON, WISCONSIN.
$109-THOUSANDS DOLLARS TO A BOYS AND GIRLS HOME IN MISSISSIPPI.
AND $229-THOUSAND DOLLARS TO NORTH CAROLINA SCHOOLS.
IF YOU THINK ABOUT IT, ENTITIES LIKE THIS OFTEN HAVE EVEN MORE
FINANCIAL ACCOUNTS THAN WE AS INDIVIDUALS DO, AND MORE DIFFERENT
PEOPLE MANAGING THEM, SO IT’S UNDERSTANDABLE THAT SOMETIMES
MONEY WOULD GO MISSING. MAKE SOMEBODY’S DAY! CONDUCT A SEARCH
FOR YOUR SCHOOL, CHARITY OR CHURCH.

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EPISODE 5~ FIND YOURS: Teenager finds unclaimed money, gives it to charity

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HALEY, HOW DID YOU FIRST LEARN ABOUT UNCLAIMED MONEY?
I was 16 and in the kitchen with my Dad and I heard ad for find Mass Money. I had never heard about this before. I looked it up and saw there was over $2 billion in Massachusetts alone that was unclaimed.

SO YOU STARTED SEARCHING FOR UNCLAIMED MONEY FOR PEOPLE YOU KNEW AND THEN FOR TOTAL STRANGERS. HOW MUCH TIME DO YOU SPEND ON THIS AND WHAT HAS BEEN THE MOST CHALLENGING PART?
In terms of time I probably spend between 5 or 10 hours a week. I go online and search in Texas and California. They show the amounts of the claims so it is easier for me to reach out to people.
You can put in a name and search for individual or search for business or company. You have to enter it into a search bar. That is one tough part. Finding companies and individuals to search for. Started by looking up companies and non profits and charities and family and friends I know. It escalated from there.

GIVE ME SOME EXAMPLES OF PEOPLE AND COMPANIES AND AMOUNTS YOU HAVE FOUND FOR THEM.
—I have found money for are Boston Global Village – a car company close to where I live. Amount:
— headsets.com. Amount:
—And family friend I found $6,000 for.
— One that was interesting to me was that I found a claim for $45,000 in Texas for a professor who now lives in Australia. Someone who doesn’t live in the US can also have unclaimed property and makes me think how many people don’t know they even have money.
— There are two others I identified recently – one for $130,000 and another for $240,000 – one was a financial company and for Xerox.
— A lot are life insurance. Checks sent to the wrong person or address so got lost. Utility bills.D

YOU HAVE TURNED THIS “WIN” INTO A “WIN-WIN.” EXPLAIN HOW YOU USE UNCLAIMED MONEY TO RAISE FUNDS FOR CHARITY.
I was in a student organization working with a literacy charity and we were having a hard time raising money so I thought it would be a cool idea to see if I could start a charity based on unclaimed money. I was 17 when I incorporated the charity and got 501 c status. Found Money Charity.  
When I contact people and businesses I ask that if they collect the unclaimed funds I identify for them, that they either donate  to FMC (in which case FMC will, in turn, donate to the three charities it supports) or that they donate directly to the three charities FMC supports.
It means a lot to me. For a long time I have been connected to these organizations so it is exciting to raise money for them and know I can support them. Going off to college I want to keep this up.

HOW MUCH MONEY HAVE YOU RAISED SO FAR?
Found Money Charity helped Headsets.com collect approximately $9,000 in unclaimed funds in California.  Headsets.com then donated $1,000 directly to FMC – which FMC has divided evenly among the three charities. 
FMC identified $3,000 of unclaimed funds in Texas for Boston Volvo.  After Boston Volvo collected that money, it provided me with three checks – each for $500 made out to each of the three charities (Dana Farber, Cradles to Crayons and Brookline Literacy Partnership), and I delivered those to the three charities. 
Then Lishan Aklog (an individual) collected the $6,000 in unclaimed funds that FMC identified for him (in New York State).  He generously chose to donate all of that money by sending me three $2,000 checks to each of the three charities, which I then delivered to them. 
So the total FMC has raised is $8,500 so far – but I am hoping and expecting to raise substantially more relatively soon.

I KNOW FROM PERSONAL EXPERIENCE THAT IT CAN BE HARD TO SHARE THE GOOD NEWS ABOUT PEOPLE’S FOUND MONEY, BECAUSE THEY DON’T BELIEVE YOU! HAS THAT BEEN A CHALLENGE?
I think sometimes people don’t trust it. I don’t know if my emails go into spam folder. I think the process for collecting a claim can also be a really long process. Not that it takes too much effort. You submit forms state needs but can drag on for a few months and that may deter people.
If there is a big claim or someone who I recognize I try to find a way to contact them by email or letter. I write and introduce myself and tell them about the cause and what I am trying to do. I give them a screen shot but I know some might say it is a scam but I give them link and tell them to search and give them the link to my website.

YOU HAVE IDENTIFIED A TOTAL OF MORE THAN 3 MILLION DOLLARS FOR PEOPLE. SO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING. LET’S GIVE OUR LISTENERS SOME EXPERT TIPS FOR SEARCHING FOR THEIR OWN UNCLAIMED MONEY. YOU SAY SEARCH EVEN IF YOU DON’T REMEMBER LOSING ANY MONEY.
Don’t think you shouldn’t search just because you don’t remember losing money. Could be electrical bills or cell phone carriers you just don’t know about.

YOUR SECOND TIP: LOOK UP ALTERNATIVE VERSIONS OF YOUR NAME.
Look up maiden names and common misspellings. I see that a lot. Also try putting your first name in the last name box and last name in the first name box. Finally try just using your last name.

THIRD: SEARCH IN STATES WHERE YOU USED TO LIVE.
Search in states where you used to live or went to college or moved or changed addresses. Also search in states where companies you have done business with are headquartered because sometimes unclaimed money is held where the company is located rather than where you are located.

FOURTH, YOU REMIND PEOPLE TO SEARCH THE NAMES OF LOVED ONES WHO HAVE DIED.
Also search for family members and for those who have passed away. I found a few like life insurance for people who passed away.

AND FINAL TIP, YOU POINT OUT THAT SOME CITIES AND TOWNS HAVE THEIR OWN UNCLAIMED MONEY POTS, SO PEOPLE SHOULD LOOK INTO THAT TOO.
Some towns and cities have their own lists. Mostly I look at treasury lists from states but have found towns and cities that have their own list so look there too. Might be smaller amounts of money.

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