Unclaimed Property Website...FREE MONEY OWED TO YOU

A couple of nights ago I couldn’t sleep so I turned on the TV and there was an infomercial on about “claiming your free money.” Now I’m not one to watch infomercials, but since I was too lazy to turn the channel I began listening to what the guy had to say.

One of the things he mentioned caught my attention. He said that one of the easiest sources of free money that his book outlined was “unclaimed property” that is being held by various consumer outlets just waiting to be claimed. He then went on to mention that billions of dollars for millions of people was freely available and easy to search for--all you had to do was search by your first and last name.

As you can imagine, I was pretty skeptical. He had a few guests on the program share their stories about logging onto the site and finding varying amounts of money that were owed to them that they had no idea about. As he continued to explain how easy it was to use the website and that the website’s URL was included in his book I thought to myself--if this is for real then I’m sure I can find that site by searching on Google.

Amazingly enough it only took one search to find the site. The organization is called the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators (NAUPA) and it bears the following tagline--Representing State Governments That Actively Find Owners While Protecting Forgotten Funds Until Claimed.

Searching for your unclaimed property is in fact just as easy as the infomercial promised. It does take a few clicks to get to the individual state sites (see my instructions below for a few of them), but then all you do is just enter your name and P-R-E-S-T-O…results are populated.

I instantly began searching for Shelley and I and came across at least one claim that may be owed to me. This led me to widen my search to include family members and friends (because you can search for anyone). After only a few minutes or searching I came across the following individuals that have money owed to them:

* Camille Bastow - $25 to $55
* Jacob Bastow - $100+
* Lacie Bastow - $100+
* Vern Bastow - $50 to $100
* David Rallison - $10 to $50
* Doug Rallison - $55 to $105
* Orval Rallison - $50 to $100
* Sherri Rallison - $15 to $35

So what are you waiting for...go to http://www.unclaimed.org/ and find out if you or anyone you know has any unclaimed property. Here is a picture of the interactive map that you use to get to each state’s chapter of the NAUPA.


I thought I would also include the following instructions for navigating the state sites that I used the most:

IDAHO
1. After clicking on the state of Idaho you will be brought to Idaho’s site
2. In the left-hand menu, hovering your mouse over the “Unclaimed Property” menu item will bring up another menu automatically that includes a link called “Search & claim property”
3. After that click on the “Claim for yourself” or “Claim for someone else or for a business” links in the middle of the page
4. Then just enter the name that you want to search

UTAH
1. After clicking on the state of Utah you will be brought to Utah’s site
2. In the left-hand menu, click on the “Search Property” link
3. Then just enter the name that you want to search

CALIFORNIA
1. After clicking on the state of California you will be brought to California’s site
2. In the left-had menu, click on the “Start Your Search” link in the “Online Claim Services” submenu
3. Then just enter the name that you want to search

HAVE FUN SEARCHING!