Unclaimed Funds - New York State

[Bean606]

Hey New Yorkers and former New Yorkers - I just found out about this site that allows you to check to see if you have unclaimed funds sitting out there in an account you forgot about:

go to this website: www.osc.state.ny.us (http://www.osc.state.ny.us/) or
click on left side "unclaimed funds"
do search for your name or names of friends/family members
it will list the people who have unclaimed funds with that name
if you go on the site, and click on the account number, it brings up a form to claim the money

Hope you all have a pot of gold out there! DH actually found a couple of thousand dollars belonging to one of his relatives.

[MelissaTC]

THANKS!!! I found some wages owed to me from college!

[octmom]

Huh. Looks like my father is owed some money, too. Thanks.

[kristenk]

Another good website is missingmoney.com. I've had luck there for various family members.

[amandabea]

wow, so I just looked for the same thing in California and found $130 in an old account...better than nothing
here is the link: http://scoweb.sco.ca.gov/UCP/

[npace19147]

Is there a way to see how much $$ is owed to you? I found one for my grandmother, who is deceased, and don't want to go to a lot of effort claiming it if it's ~$5. I clicked on the link highlighted in blue but didn't see an amount listed.

[Bean606]

I have a feeling that for privacy/confidentiality reasons they won't disclose the amount until you prove that you are the person entitled to the $$, but I don't know for sure.

[rlu]

Most states have some type of escheat/abandoned property law. Just takes a bit of googling. Usually the Treasurer, Comptroller, Dept of Finance, etc. is the govt entity that collects it. You can collect these fee-free if you do the work yourself.

[rlu]

Another good website is missingmoney.com. I've had luck there for various family members.

Was there a fee involved? I see the search is free, but did they offer to obtain the money for you, or just direct you to the state to get the money back? Just curious.

[kristenk]

The things I found were in the state of Texas. Missingmoney.com provided a link to the search page for the Unclaimed Property division (or whatever it is) in Texas. I filled in the forms on the Texas state page and then handled things that way. The mm.com site is the way I found out about the unclaimed property, but the site wasn't involved at all in the collection process.

I don't know if they offer to obtain the money for you. It seems sort of silly to do it that way, though, b/c I'm assuming that you'd have to provide mm.com the same info that you'd have to provide the individual state. It might work differently for other states, though.

[unclaimed3]

Is there a way to see how much $$ is owed to you? I found one for my grandmother, who is deceased, and don't want to go to a lot of effort claiming it if it's ~$5. I clicked on the link highlighted in blue but didn't see an amount listed.

As a matter of fact NYS does not divulge the amoun until a positive match has been made with the claimant. Thats a part of the states specific statute regarding unclaimed funds.

Some states will divulge the exact money amount while others have adopted a "above $100" or "below $100" classification. This will allow the claimant to decide whether it is worth the hassle.

Most people don't know about this part of the unclaimed property site.

It is an alphabetical listing of the most RECENT funds that have been turned over within the last 6 months. :)

http://www.osc.state.ny.us/ouf_recent/index.htm

Good luck, enjoy and happy hunting! :)