Money Sense Tips

How to Find Lost Cash on MissingMoney.com
The Who, What, Where and How of Finding Missing Money at MissingMoney.com
By Sylvia Cochran

MissingMoney.com has been getting the celebrity treatment on the CBS Early Show and with $33 billion unclaimed, who wouldn’t look for some missing money? This author tries her luck at the MissingMoney site …

Who Runs MissingMoney.com?
The MissingMoney.com website is run by the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators (NAUPA). Not all states post to the Missing Money website. Notably absent are Oregon, California, Wyoming, Indiana, New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Arkansas, Georgia, the Virgin Islands, Guam and Hawaii. Illinois and Rhode Island promise to add their databases to the MissingMoney.com site soon.

What Kind of Missing Money Can You Find?
Did you move and misplace your bank accounts information? Have you forgotten about your safe deposit box contents or some un-cashed checks? Did you at one point open an investment account with stocks, mutual funds, and bonds but does far have not gotten any dividends? Unclaimed insurance policy proceeds, trust funds, forgotten CDs, never returned utility deposits, and of course escrow accounts all report their unclaimed funds to NAUPA.

Where Do You Need to Go to Find Missing Money?
If you live in one of the states that participate with NAUPA, a quick trip to MissingMoney.com is all you need to start searching. If you live in one of the states that are thus far excluded from participation, note that MissingMoney.com offers links to the various state run bureaus of unclaimed property, where you may strike gold.

How Does MissingMoney.com Work?
Missing money searches are free of charge. Access MissingMoney.com; enter your first name, last name, and the state in which you want to look for money. Since California is not a participating state and since I lived for a while in Colorado, I am typing in my name and the state abbreviation for Colorado.

Once I press enter, I am rewarded with 73 listings, none of which are in Colorado. It would appear that if one state yields no result, the search is expanded to the entire database. Each listing details the state in which the money is held; some offer a last known address, the entity that reported having the money, and occasionally an exact dollar amount or a listing that identifies it as being over or under $100.
Since I live in sunny Southern California, a state that does not post to the Missing Money website, I head on over the CA Unclaimed Property Search site; will I have more luck? Nope, nothing; it seems that when someone owes me money, I just don’t forget about it.

Sources
http://missingmoney.com/; http://scoweb.sco.ca.gov/UCP/
More resources

http://missingmoney.com/