(Part 1 of 2)

In May of 2007, Illinois State Treasurer State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias announced that the state's "Cash Dash" abandoned asset program currently holds almost $1.4 Billion in Illinois unclaimed money. The only thing getting between the cash and its rightful owners is the knowledge that it's out there waiting to be claimed and the ability to locate it.

Sadly beyond just Illinois, state treasury departments across the nation continue to take in more unclaimed property every year than they give back to the citizens. Due to the fact that everyone believes in the old "if it's too good to be true" saying, most people do not believe that there are really tens of billions of dollars that can be claimed nationwide. Even for the handful who have come to accept the truth about unclaimed properties, the best way to find these monies eludes them in most cases.

The Prairie is State is one of just a few states that holds over a billion dollars on its own, and that means that if you are a resident of Illinois then you have even better odds of finding a claim in your name, especially when you factor in that the state has just under 13 million people and there are over 10 million names on the state's Illinois list.

Although there are many more, Illinois lists the following as the most common sources of missing money: credit balances, customer deposits or overpayments, safe deposit box contents, money orders, refunds, paid-up life insurance policies, travelers checks, unpaid wages or commissions, abandoned savings and checking accounts, bonds, stock, un-cashed dividends, mutual funds. Anyone who has had or knows someone who may have had one of these accounts at one time or another is encouraged to search frequently.

The Illinois State Treasury has given back over 432 million dollars since it took control of the unclaimed property program in 1999, $84 million of which was returned in 2006 alone, but with $1.4 Billion waiting to be claimed and more coming in all the time, the heap of cash will continue to grow.

(to be continued)

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