(Part 1 of 2)

In May of 2007, IL State Treasurer State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias announced that the state's "Cash Dash" abandoned asset program is holding roughly 1.4 Billion dollars in Illinois unclaimed money. The only thing standing between the cash and its rightful owners is the knowledge that it's out there and the knowledge to find it.

Sadly beyond just IL, state treasury departments across the country keep on taking in more unclaimed money each year than they hand back to the rightful owners. 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 waiting to 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 most of the time.

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

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

The IL State Treasury has returned over $432 million 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 heap of cash will continue to grow.

(to be continued)

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Harvey County residents owed $1.3 million – Newton Kansan
The office is in possession of more than $215 million in lost property or money. In Harvey County, McKinney said the state’s records show 9,716 residents are owed almost $1.3 million. To find the missing loot, searchers need to go to www.

BRIEF: MONEY: Washington list of unclaimed property … – TMCnet
Apr 05, 2010 (Tri-City Herald – McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) — Nearly $87 million and 410,000 names have been added to Washington state's database of unclaimed property. That brings the number of people owed money in the state …

Ark. lottery forced to revise budget after law change found
Arkansas' lottery director said Wednesday he wasn't aware that the Legislature changed how money from unclaimed prizes is to be managed — a move that required lottery officials to revise their 2011 budget.