(Part 1 of 2)

In May 2007, Illinois State Treasurer State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias stated that the state's "Cash Dash" program currently holds roughly $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 knowledge to track it down.

Sadly beyond just Illinois, state treasury departments across the United States continue to take in more unclaimed property every year than they give back to the rightful owners. Because 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 waiting to be claimed nationwide. Even for the handful who have learned the truth about unclaimed properties, the best way to find these monies eludes them more often than not.

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

Although there are many more, Illinois names 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 some point in the past is encouraged to search regularly.

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

(to be continued)

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