(Part 1 of 2)

In May of 2007, IL 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 standing between the cash and its true owners is the knowledge that it's out there waiting to be claimed and the ability to locate it.

Sadly in addition to IL, state treasury departments across the nation keep on taking in more unclaimed property annually than they hand back to the people. Due to the fact that everyone believes in the old "if it's too good to be true" saying, the majority of people do not believe that there are truly tens of billions of dollars that can be claimed nationwide. Even for those few who have learned the truth about unclaimed assets, the best way to find these monies eludes them more often than not.

The Prairie is State is one of only a few states that is holding over 1 billion dollars on its own, which means if you're a resident of IL then you have even better odds of locating a claim in your name, especially after you factor in that the state has just under 13 million people and there are over 10 million names on the state's IL list.

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

The IL State Treasury has returned over $432 million 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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State treasurer's office seeks owners of lost property – Herald & Review
DECATUR – Cash Dash, an Illinois Treasurer's Office program designed to get unclaimed property back in the hands of its owners, is ready to go public with a list of people it wants to pay back after all these years. A treasurer's spokeswoman said …

County hopes to return taxpayers’ money – Seguin Gazette-Enterprise
Guadalupe County Treasurer Linda Douglass might be able to help you get it back. In her quarterly report to county commissioners, Douglass said Tuesday she was looking for owners of more than $4 million in unclaimed money being held for Guadalupe …

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