(Part 1 of 2)

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

Sadly in addition to Illinois, state treasury departments across the United States keep on taking in more unclaimed funds annually than they give 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 across the country. Even for those few who have come to accept 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 only a few states that is holding over 1 billion dollars on its own, and that means that if you're a resident of Illinois then you have even better odds of finding 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 Illinois database.

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. People who have had or know someone who may have had one of these types of accounts at one time or another is encouraged to search regularly.

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

(to be continued)

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