(Part 1 of 2)

In May 2007, IL State Treasurer State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias announced that the state's "Cash Dash" program currently holds nearly 1.4 Billion dollars in Illinois unclaimed money. The only thing standing between the cash and its true owners is the knowledge that it is out there waiting to be claimed and the knowledge to find it.

Sadly beyond just IL, state treasury departments across the United States keep on taking in more unclaimed money annually than they return to the people. Because everyone believes in the old "if it's too good to be true" saying, the majority of people refuse to believe that there are really tens of billions of dollars waiting to be claimed nationwide. Even for the handful who have learned the truth about unclaimed assets, the best way to track these monies down eludes them more often than not.

The Prairie is State is one of those rare states that is holding over 1 billion dollars on its own, which means if you are a resident of IL then you have even greater odds of tracking down a claim in your name, especially after you consider that the state has less than 13 million people and there are over 10 million names on the state's IL database.

Although there are many more, IL lists the following as the most common sources of forgotten funds: 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 regularly.

The IL State Treasury has handed back over 432 million dollars since it took control of the unclaimed money program in 1999, 84 million dollars of which was given back in 2006 alone, but with 1.4 Billion dollars waiting to be claimed and more coming in every year, the pile of cash will keep on growing.

(to be continued)

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UNCLAIMED PROPERTY: Windfall awaited Gulfport Katrina victim (The Clarion-Ledger)
Pamela Wilkinson of Gulfport was working three jobs when she found out she was owed money.

Nonprofits' Cash Going Unclaimed (NBC Bay Area)
People aren't the only ones who may have extra money in state coffers.

Osborn wants money returned to rightful owners – Beatrice Daily Sun
Nebraska State Treasurer Shane Osborn is trying to give a little money back to the people it belongs to. Wednesday in Omaha, he attempted to distribute more than $300,000. Thursday, during a brief stop in Beatrice, he spread the wealth a little …

$1.2M in unclaimed cash available – Mount Airy News
RALEIGH — An injection of more than $1 million could do wonders for the local economy, but first Surry County citizens, businesses and other governmental units must stake their claims to that cash. The most recent unclaimed property list from the N …