Episode 13 – How to claim missing money
Episode transcript:
[musical intro]
Jenny
Welcome back to Fund Your Future with DRS. And we’ve got a special guest here with us today. For our podcast we like to dive into topics that can help you budget better and save money. And today we have a great guest here with us to talk a little bit about a topic that you may not know about. So, Joe, tell us a little bit about what you do.
Joe
Yeah. My name is Joe and I work in Unclaimed Property at the Washington State Department of Revenue as the Unclaimed Property Claims and Outreach Manager. I worked at the Department of Revenue for more than 19 years, and I spent around four years in unclaimed property and the last year as the manager.
Jenny
And what exactly is unclaimed property? Because I don’t think a lot of people realize that they might have some unclaimed property out there.
Joe
So unclaimed property, I believe, is the best part about Department of Revenue. We’re working on giving money away or reuniting people with their money. We currently hold $1.8 billion in unclaimed property and we’re looking for the rightful owners to claim. Basically, unclaimed property, is property held by an organization who has not had contact with the owner for an extended period of time.
Typical unclaimed property that we might have is: bank accounts un-cashed checks, money orders, credit balances, traveler’s checks, stocks and dividends, life insurance policies, refund rebates, utility deposits and payroll. Usually unclaimed property is money. But we can also get things like coins or jewelry from a safe deposit box. Basically, any business that might owe you money has to be turned over to unclaimed property.
And usually it’s considered abandoned after three years and it’s turned over to the state. And then something to add to a lot of people actually think unclaimed property is a scam. But we’re not. Unclaimed property is a part of the Department of Revenue, which is the state agency and a state run program. Our whole purpose is to act as a consumer protection program for the public.
This is basically property or money you may not know is due to you. And so we’re a central repository so people can come and look up and see if they have unclaimed property.
Jenny
That’s really cool. So if I wanted to find out if I had any of this unclaimed property or missing money, where would I go? What would I do?
Joe
You’re going to hear me say this a lot, but go to ClaimYourCash.org. So ClaimYourCash.org and you can search your name or search of family member’s name. Or if you have a business, you can search your business name, search your friends to see if they have missing money. The results show kind of a list of properties that might match or that match your search.
And sometimes you have more than one property and it’s a lot like an online shopping cart where you can select each property and then add it to your cart. And then it will take you to the next page where you kind of fill an online form. Yeah. And then, like I said, go to ClaimYourCash.org search for that property not just once, but come back at least once a year.
We get property…most of the property is turned over to us around October. It’s usually published on our website sometime around January, February. But we also get, you know, businesses trickling in, reporting late or reporting really early. So you never know when we’re going to have new properties. So I would say check back every six months or so.
Seth
Joe, is that website just for property that was… “abandoned” in Washington? Or does that cover a broader group of states?
Joe
So that is just for Washington. So if you’ve lived in another state, there’s actually another website out there. It’s called MissingMoney.com and you can search by state. It’s actually really similar to our current website. It’s basically the same vendor. So our vendor has, you know, they contract with a lot of other states. And so everybody’s unclaimed property can be listed there.
But then again, the claim process is also different for every state. So make sure and follow the instructions on MissingMoney.com
Seth
Gotcha.
Jenny
Yeah, that’s cool. I know that I go in and check my name and like my family’s name every couple of months just to kind of see, see what’s on there. Yeah. And then how long does the process take? So if I see that I have a claim on there and submit all of my information, how long would it take for me to expect to see a check in the mail?
Joe
So something I’ve missed on the last question. But once you find property and you follow up an online form, usually what happens is you’ll get an email with a claim form to sign and documentation that you might have to provide, like let’s say like a copy of a photo ID or proof of an old address. Once you upload that documentation on our website, it takes about 6 to 8 weeks for you to get your money.
Once you’ve submitted that, we’re working the claims in the order they’re received. And so we try and get them out as quickly as possible. But it is taking about 6 to 8 weeks. You know, if there’s more documentation needed, we will contact you. You’ll usually be notified by email and then you can always check your claim progress on our website ClaimYourCash.org
Jenny
Cool. What’s the average claim amount that you guys see?
Joe
So the average dollar of unclaimed property is right around $131.
Jenny
Okay, that’s pretty good.
Joe
Yeah. But keep in mind that that amount can actually fluctuate. I mean, you have people that only have a dollar, but then we also have people that have millions of dollars. So that’s an average. But you have to keep in mind that some of those are some huge amounts.
Seth
Joe, how do people lose $1,000,000? [laughter]
Joe
That’s a great question. You know, it could happen. I mean, sometimes you might have stocks, those kind of things. And if you just haven’t done anything on your account, you know, they’ll send… usually a business will send what’s called a due diligence letter and let you know that you have money, that you know, you need to do something on your account or else is going to be turned over to unclaimed property.
You know, sometimes you move, you don’t get that letter. Anything can happen. But luckily we are here, We have that money and we’re not going to give it away to anybody. We’re going to give it to the right person.
Jenny
Yeah. And even if the person dies, right, then it goes to their.
Joe
Their heirs. Yes. Then it goes to their heirs.
Jenny
Cool. Can you share some stories about people who’ve claimed some of these larger amounts?
Joe
Yeah. So I can I can tell you some stories. Not like individual people, just because that’s not public information. But I have some kind of general stories. We did have someone that reached out to us recently. One of his family members found out they had, you know, a small amount of property. And then we did a search for him and he had $5,700 that belonged to him.
So that’s all money, he had no knowledge of, didn’t know anything about unclaimed property. But a family member basically said, “hey, check out this website.” We also had someone call in around Thanksgiving. They received a letter from a business saying they were turning over about $2,500 worth of money to unclaimed property. That would be that due diligence letter.
They’d already sent it. She called, you know, and we searched her name. We found the property she was referring to. But like I said, sometimes it takes a little while to reconcile report. You know, the money comes in in October, but we got the report. We have to match everything up. You know, sometimes we’re in touch with the holder because there’s issues with the report, those kind of things.
And so we had the money, but we weren’t able to refund it to it right away, you know, And she was really hoping to use that money for Christmas. But we said, you know, we’ll let you know as soon as it’s available, but we could do another search for her and see if there’s any other properties. And we did a search and we found another $1,700 worth of property.
Wow. You know, she’s really happy. Not only is she getting the money that she you know, she thought she was going to get it, but she’s getting another $1700. So, we set up a claim for those properties and she submitted the documentation or the proof documentation. She got $1700 back, way before Christmas. And then a few weeks later, we were able to do another claim and do another $2,500.
That was a good story, I thought. And then some kind of more general stories. But, you know, we had an individual on food stamps and he received $100,000 from an unknown class action lawsuit. So you know that that’s something you know, you just never know with those class action lawsuits and then some other good things that we’ve done recently.
You know, we recently returned over $100,000 to a nonprofit organization, and we returned another $118,000 to a school district. And then we just returned another $66,000 to a local mental health and substance abuse center.
Jenny
Very cool. So it’s obviously not just individuals. It’s obviously companies, too, that can have unclaimed property.
Joe
Yes. So check your business name, too, when you go to ClaimYourCash.org
Jenny
Yeah, perfect.
Seth
Joe, it sounds like you have an amazing job. One, that would be my first take. But yeah, do you do you see business pick up around the holidays? People looking for more cash. You mentioned like 6 to 8 weeks is kind of the normal time period. Does it take longer when businesses are putting more information into the system in October because people are likely looking in November, December for money?
Is that sort of the the typical cycle for you?
Joe
You know, honestly, we’re pretty steady all year long. You know, we kind of have different things to promote things or promote unclaimed property. I mean, we also have a couple of our full time locators. Their job is to look at the property in our database to have the most value or highest dollar value, and then they work to return those property, the owners and then we also go to different outreach events.
So like last year we attended Hoop Fest in Spokane sponsored some basketball courts. So we had kind of our logo on some basketball hoops. You know, we went to Lake Fair in Olympia, Washington State Fair in Puyallup, Tacoma Food and Gift Festival. So like as we go to those things, you know, and that’s kind of throughout the year, things pick up.
And then we also contract with a marketing vendor right now. And so we have radio advertising, radio interviews, we’ve got radio advertising on Spanish speaking radio stations. We post things on social media. And then last year during Mariners games, we had commercials I’m not sure if everybody knew that. And we’re going to have commercials again this year. So…
Jenny
Yeah, I was going to say, I think I’ve even seen the commercials in the evening while I’ve been watching Jeopardy.
Joe
So we’re pretty busy and pretty steady all year round right now. 6 to 8 weeks fluctuates too. Sometimes we have staff that leave and have to hire new staff, so sometimes that can kind of delay things, but.
Seth
Mm hmm.
Joe
Yeah, I mean, we’re pretty busy all year round.
Seth
Yeah, that’s great.
Jenny
Okay, so we talked a little bit about how obviously people can have missing money, but there is, as you had mentioned before, this other side, this actual unclaimed property and items and things like that, like coins and jewelry. And how exactly does the state get those items?
Joe
So if you or one of your family members, has a safe deposit box and the rent has not been paid on it for five years, the contents are actually turned over to the state of Washington. We do only accept safe deposit box contents from financial institutions. So, I mean, we’re not something like lost and found or any items from a storage facility.
So that doesn’t come to us. But once we receive the contents, we hold it for… we currently hold it for two or more years. And then actually prior to this year we were only holding it for one year. If the owner doesn’t claim the items, we are required to actually sell those contents at a public auction. And then at that point the owners or their heirs can come forward at any time to claim the cash value of the items after they’re sold.
Our last auction was in November of 2022, and typically it’s like collectible coins, collectible currency, jewelry, watches, stamps, you know, silver bars, gold bars, sports cards, collectibles, those kind of things. We do not auction like land, vehicles or any other property. So and we do try before we have an auction. I mean, we try really hard, but once we receive those contents and the report balances or reconciles, we do send out a letter to everybody at their last known address saying, Hey, we have this property now, come forward and claim it.
And then we usually try and send something out right before the auction as well. And then, you know, when it’s something that might, you know, sometimes we’ll…. if it has a really high value, we might have one of our locators trying to get in touch with them before we sell it as well.
Jenny
Oh, that’s so cool. Yeah, that’s fantastic.
Seth
So my takeaways are: it’s not a scam. I think that’s the first thing we want people to absolutely know. Claim your cash. And it’s something that you should look at occasionally. I mean, I kind of thought initially like, Oh, I would just look at it once. I never look at it again. But as you’re saying, things are coming into this database all the time.
Joe
Yes, they are. Like I said, most of it’s reported around October, but it takes a while to reconcile reports, too. So, you know, businesses can kind of report late or early. So we’re getting property throughout the year. And you know something I want to add too is, you know, I’ve worked some of these booths, these outreach events that like Lake Fair and Washington State Fair, and people walk by and I’ll kind of try and educate them on unclaimed property and, you know, how many people… one, will think it’s a scam, but two people are like, “no, I don’t have unclaimed property.”
Well, how do you know? “Well, I’m good with my finances.” That’s not necessarily the reason why the money has come to us. I mean, you could have been, you know, the business didn’t send you due diligence letter or maybe, you know, something got lost in the mail. Like last year for me, I had air conditioning installed in my house.
Right? So, six months later, I got a rebate check, not from the company that installed it and not the name of the air conditioner, but just another third party company. And I got a check for like $500. Didn’t know that was coming. I had no idea. I googled it to make sure it was valid and it was. But if I had just thought that was junk mail, that’s $500 that could have came to unclaimed property.
Yeah. You know, just because you’re amazing with your finances, it does not mean that you don’t have unclaimed property.
Seth
That’s a really good example. I mean, especially, I think as young people move around, you move from address to address and things might not follow you as much as you thought and a deposit, a check that was late getting to you that you didn’t even know was going to come. Yeah, those are those are really great examples. And I think really good reason to check back frequently.
And I know, as Jenny said, you know, seen on TV commercials or seeing news articles like you’re out there trying to promote this and remind people that it’s available. So I really appreciate that you’re talking to us about it and reminding us as well. I know. Both Jenny and I have checked recently.
Jenny
Yeah, I think it’s great. And that’s why we wanted to have you on the podcast is for our listeners to know about this great service that’s out there.
Joe
Yeah, I’m glad you had me. I want as many people as possible to go to ClaimYourCash.org and look for unclaimed property, because that’s what we want to do. We want to get the money back to people.
Seth
Yeah, I’m curious to hear from our listeners, Jenny, if they found money, what they would do with it as well.
Jenny
Oh yeah. For sure.
Seth
You probably get some interesting stories. I mean, you’ve already shared some interesting stories about people who are in dire financial straits and the life changing ability to do that. But even just to buy a present for somebody or pay a debt off, I mean, there are all sorts of wonderful things you could do with found money.
Jenny
Definitely.
Joe
Yeah. It’s almost kind of like winning the lotto, but it’s money that you had you didn’t know about.
Jenny
Perfect. Well, if any of our listeners do find some unclaimed property, let us know. You can always email us at drs.podcasts@www.drs.wa.gov. Thank you so much Joe. We really appreciate having you on the show here and…
Joe
Yeah, you’re welcome.
Jenny
…telling us about the Unclaimed Property program.
Joe
Yeah, you’re welcome. And I actually have one more thing I wanted to talk about. So, Unclaimed Property actually recently launched what we’re calling the Money Match program that just launched in January. So this program is automatically returning unclaimed property to Washingtonians after verifying ownership without requiring the owner to file a claim or submit documentation. So basically, we’re able to determine that this money is going to the person.
And so at that point in January, again, we just launched the program, but in January, we sent out around 2,000 letters letting people know that a check is going to be coming. And then actually the checks just went out in the mail yesterday and there’s a little over 1,800 of them. And we are hoping to kind of work through this, look at the process and hopefully up it to maybe $10,000 next quarter and try and continue to do this every quarter.
Seth
Wow. That’s great. And also a good reminder, not a scam.
Joe
Not a scam. Yes. Yes. Hopefully the letter I mean, the letters referencing our website and there’s stuff all over it. I mean, you know, we’re trying to get the word out about this as much as possible. And so if anybody is out there, too, that receive one of these checks, please do cash it. It is not a scam.
Jenny
Perfect. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. We really appreciate it.
Joe
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Jenny
Okay. Thank you.
[music outro]
Disclaimer
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The views expressed by guests are their own, and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. Views and opinions expressed by DRS employees are those of the employees and do not necessarily reflect the view of DRS or any of its officials.
