A recent report in the Chattanooga Times said that millions of dollars of unclaimed lottery winnings are lying with the Georgia government. This is because people buy lottery tickets on the spur of the moment and then forget about them and winnings from these tickets remain unclaimed. But this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Georgia has hundreds of millions of dollars of unclaimed money lying with the State Treasury waiting to be given to the rightful owners. The problem is that even with the best of intension's, there is no way to trace the owners.
People often move to a new place, either within or out of the state, leaving no forwarding address behind, or perhaps an incorrect one since they place they are moving to is new. Either way, there is no way the Post Office can locate these people to deliver their mail which may contain information about tax refunds, savings or bank accounts, safe deposit boxes, pension payments, gift certificates, undelivered salary checks and all kinds of other information that may benefit the person financially.
When this money stays unclaimed for a period of time (the duration depends on what form the money takes) it is taken over by the State government for safe keeping. And it stays there until someone claims it.
Like all states, Georgia has an unclaimed property database that is accessible online by anyone. Searching through this is a simple process and if you do find some money that rightfully belongs to you, the procedure to claim it is given. And the money need not have been yours originally.
One Georgia resident recently did a search and while he found nothing in his name, he did find the unclaimed estate of an aunt to which he was entitled. He filed the claim, with the proper supporting documents and received a considerable amount.
Many people don't know that unclaimed money may be found quite simply by entering your name into an unclaimed money search.
Unclaimed money can come from many places:
- Uncashed pay checks
- Old utility deposits
- Insurance premiums
- Stocks, bonds and dividends
- Inheritance
- Lottery winnings that have gone unclaimed
and many other places.
Don't think that this happens only to other people. Making a search for unclaimed property costs nothing. Sure, you may find that there is nothing owed to you, but in a surprising number of cases, people do find considerable sums of money due to them that they had no idea about. Try making a search ? what have you got to lose?
