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Unclaimed Money Finder Lists

March 24, 2016 By moneyfinderbiz 29 Comments

Unclaimed money lists are the most valuable tool to unclaimed money finders.

Most states offer a search of their database online, but they don’t give the valuable information that you need to work as a finder.

For example, if you were to do a search in California, you would have to enter a name and wait for the search engine to give you the results.

Let’s enter “Smith” as an example:

You can see that Smith being a common name offers over 200,000 results:

If you click on one of the tabs with an address, you will get more information, including the amount owed and where the money came from:

However, this is not the way you want to search for unclaimed funds as an unclaimed money finder!

Doing it this way (above), you’re entering a name and then hoping to get a positive search result. Then, if you do get a positive result, you have to see how much is coming to that person.

There is a much easier way!

Many states provide lists to finders that contain all of the information you need to start your searches.

Here is a screenshot of part of the list from California:

The names are whited out because when we originally made this page you needed to be registered in California to search as an unclaimed money finder there so we weren’t supposed to show this information. Now, you still need to register in order to act as an unclaimed money finder, but anyone can download the list for free.

As you can see, you get the names, the addresses, the property ID and most importantly, the dollar amounts!

Now that you have everything you need, you can start your search the right way!

When you get the list from California you can sort it a variety of ways including by dollar amount.

You can get more information on becoming a California unclaimed money finder here.

Here is a screenshot taken from Ohio’s unclaimed money finder list:

Again, I had to white out the names as you have to registered as a finder in Ohio to work with the list, but I wanted to give you an idea of what is available on these lists.

You can get more information on becoming an Ohio unclaimed money finder here.

Not every state charges for their list. Alaska charges $25 for their list but offers it as a free download on their site.

Here is a screenshot of the list from Alaska:

Alaska may be far away, but it is the same price for a stamp to send someone a letter letting them know they have unclaimed money coming to them as it would be for any other state.

You can get more information on becoming an unclaimed money finder in Alaska here.

It’s not just states that let you find unclaimed money for a fee.

There are many counties holding unclaimed money that let you search for their owner for a fee.

Here is a screenshot from the Franklin County Auditor in Ohio:

Franklin County, as most counties with lists, do not charge for them. They also have certain rules that you have to follow but they usually don’t have limits on the fee you can charge (as opposed to most states).

Click here to see a refund example in Franklin County.

The below table can be very helpful. It contains information on the fees you can charge as an unclaimed money finder in a particular state, whether you need to be a private investigator or not, and the cost of the list used in your searches.

As I mention in the Guide , rules do change occasionally, so it is in your best interest to contact the state(s) you want to search in to make sure you have the most up to date information.

Use the “Previous” and “Next” arrows at the bottom of the table to go through the states.

State	Do you provide owner data to asset locaters?	Maximum fee amount (or NA)	Private investigat or and/or other licensure required?	Type of Media provided	Cost of Media	What data is kept confidential from the asset locater?	What is the period of time that owner data is kept protected?
Alabama	No	N/A	No				24 months
Alaska	Yes	10% & 20%	No	CD or online	$25 CD or Free on our Website	SSN	24 months
Arizona	No	33%	Yes	N/A	N/A	All until a claim is filed and they produce a valid POA	Indefinitely
Arkansas	Yes	10%	No	online and list review in office	N/A		24 months
California	Yes	10%	No	Online	Free	SSN and Account No.	N/A
Colorado	Yes	20% & 30%	No		property desc, ssn/fein		24 mos
Connecticut	Yes	10%	No	CD of a PDF file	$200	SSN	2 years
Delaware
Florida	Yes	20%	Yes			Social Security Number and Property Identifier	N/A
Georgia	Yes	10 Percent	No	CD	$50	Owner Address, Property Description, Dollar Amt, SSN,	24 Months
Hawaii	Yes	10%	No	CD	NA	SSN	24 months
Idaho	No	No Limit	No	none	n/a	owner address, property description, dollar amnt, SSN, etc	always
Illinois	No	10%	Yes	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Indiana	Yes	10%	No	cd; depends on extent of request	$3	ssn	24 mos
Iowa	Yes	15%	Yes	CD	$25	SSN	24 months
Kansas	No	15%	No	N/A	NA	N/A	N/A
Kentucky	Yes	10%	No	Paper and CD	Ten cents per page	Dollar amount, SSN	24 months
Louisiana	Yes	10%	No	CD	$50	SSN	24 Months
Maine	Yes	No Limit	Yes	CD of PDF report	$75	Amt, SSN	24
Maryland	Yes	No Limit	No	Paper List		Dollar Amount/SSN	indefinitely
Massachusetts	Yes	N/A		CD	$10
Michigan	Yes	N/A	No	CD	2.5 cents per record up to 100,000; 0.5 cents per record over 100,000	owner address and ss number	24 months
Minnesota	Yes	10% W/O AGREEMENT	Yes		500/CD MN BOOKSTORE	SSN	24 MONTHS
Mississippi		10%
Missouri	Yes	20%	No	CD	$50	No SSN, No dollar amount over $50 (excpet life insurance amounts)	N/A
Montana	No	15%	Yes	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Nebraska	Yes	10%	No	CD	$65	address, SSN. property description, specific amount	24 months
Nevada	Yes	10%	No	CD	$20 per year	SSN	24 months
New Hampshire	No	No Limit	No	N/A	N/A	N/A	Indefinitely
New Jersey	No	20%	No	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
New Mexico	Yes	No Limit	No	paper list, CD		ssn, account #
New York	Yes	15%	No	CD	$25	Dollar amt, SSN	none
North Carolina	Yes	20% (or $1000, whichever is less)	Yes	CD	$15	SSN	24 months
North Dakota	Yes	10%	Yes	CD in PDF format	$150 for entire list	property value and SSN	none
Ohio	Yes	10%	Yes	CD/DVD	$2.50	SSN, Acct# limited to last 4 digits, FEIN	24 months
Oklahoma	Yes	25% of property value	No	CD	$25 CD	Only provide last known name and address	always except LKN & address
Oregon	Yes	No Limit	Yes	CD, paper	$150 per release year	SSN	24 months
Pennsylvania	Yes	15%	No	CD	$300	SSN	24 months
Rhode Island	No	N/A	No	N/A	N/A	N/A	2 years
South Carolina	No	15%		N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
South Dakota		25%	No	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Tennessee	Yes	10%	Yes	PDF	$200	SSN, HIPPA info	Property held 1 year from date advertised
Texas	No	10%	Yes	CD, online	Depends on what is requested	SSN	SSN always
Utah	No	No Limit	No	N/A	NA	SSN, Acct #, $$	24
Vermont	Yes	10%	No	CD	$2.64 for CD	SSN, Account Numbers	24 Months
Virginia	No	10%	No	CD if request meets the criteria of FOIA	reasonable cost to produce as allowed under FOIA procedures	Everything except Name and City	indefinitely
Washington	Yes	5%	No	paper list	cost of paper	SSN, owner names	N/A
Washington, D.C.	Yes	10%	No	e mail/online	N/A	SSN, usually dollar amount	12 months
West Virginia	Yes	No Limit	No	online	No fee	street address, desc, amount, ssn	Indefinitely
Wisconsin	Yes	20%	No	CD	$150	SSN	12
Wyoming	Yes	No Limit	No	CD	$1,000	SSN	2 yrs postescheat
Alberta	No	10%	No	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
British Columbia	No	N/A	No	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Puerto Rico	No	N/A	No	N/A	N/A

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Finder Helps Recover $200,000 !

May 22, 2015 By moneyfinderbiz 4 Comments

The following story is from KATV in Little Rock, Arkansas.

The claimant recovered over $200,000, yet he thinks it’s immoral that he was charged for it!

Meanwhile, if the finder didn’t contact him, he would still have no idea that the money was waiting for him!

UPDATE JUNE 2015 – Well KATV took down the video I had on here. You can still read the full text below. The plain text is from the video and the bold text in italics are my comments. Here is the link to the story on their site, but you can see the video is disabled.

Decades ago a Fayetteville man was named in an inheritance he knew nothing about. Again, had the finder not contacted him, he still wouldn’t know anything about it.

Recently a professional finder contacted him and said that, for a fee, he would help him collect nearly a quarter of a million dollars. He happily paid $23,000.00 (10%) to collect $207,000.00. 10%, not an outrageous percentage and keeping within the law.

But he easily could have claimed it all. Yes, if he had known about it which he didn’t!

There are national companies that search state data bases looking for people who have unclaimed cash or property. You can pay them to help you claim what is yours…or you can claim it yourself. You can claim it yourself if you know about it!

When James Dunbar changed jobs, he left more than memories and co-workers behind. “I used to work at…I worked at a different place than I am now,” explains Dunbar. “And when I left I was fully vested in my life insurance there. And unbeknownst to me I had some money coming to me.”

Dunbar got a letter in the mail alerting him to the fact that there was property or cash of his waiting to be claimed. The finder would help him do just that…for a fee. Does this reporter get paid for his job, or does he do it for free? ”

You don’t have to pay anything to get your unclaimed property,” says State Auditor Andrea Lea. “You don’t have to contract with someone. If a finder contacts you then get on our web site or call us directly on our 1-800 number and ask us and we’ll walk you through the process.”

The state auditor’s office stores property from old safety deposit boxes…stuff like gun collections, jewelry, silver…even human remains. Most of the $280 million in unclaimed property though is cash, stocks, bonds or forgotten policies like Mr. Dunbar’s. He says the process of collecting is easy and fears rightful owners, particularly the elderly, are easy marks for finders.

“It’s not illegal but from what I understand it is immoral,” says Dunbar. “And that’s my feelings on it.” He thinks it is immoral as he collected over $200,000 that would still be sitting there if he had not been contacted by a finder.

You can visit the state auditor’s web site and easily search your name or any name. A search of “Jason Pederson” didn’t find anything but a search of Jason’s wife’s name did find some forgotten U-Promise certificate worth between $10.00 and $100.00 waiting to be claimed.

Even though he is the one who searched his wife’s name Jason says it would be unwise…if not immoral…to try and charge her a finder’s fee.

The bottom line is finders provider a service just like any other business.

The amount of unclaimed money being held by the states is growing every year.

The states just cannot keep up with it.

With a handful of state office workers getting paid the same whether they return $1,000,000 or $100 the numbers are going to continue to grow.

Unless finders get involved, there are going to be many more people with $200,000 or more coming to them that will never collect it.

Please click here if you would like to learn more about becoming an unclaimed money finder.

Five Minute Refund Nets $1600 !

September 22, 2014 By moneyfinderbiz 2 Comments

Sometimes this business can be so easy!

We just received two checks totaling $1600 and the initial amount of time put into it was literally five minutes!

I have to admit, total time involved with follow up including making up invoices may have been about half an hour, but still that’s not a bad hourly rate!

I’d like to show you the steps involved so you can see how easy this was.

First, I pulled up a list of unclaimed funds from one of the many counties that post their unclaimed money information online, very easy. The list below has been edited to just the two properties in question.

Once I had that information, I did a Google search of the name and address. It didn’t give me the the names on the list, but a property management firm instead.

So, I went to the property management firms website and filled out the form on the contact page mentioning the two locations listed, letting them know they had unclaimed money being held for them, and asking if the property management firm was associated with them.

Then I hit send on the contact form.

My phone rang two minutes later!

It was the CFO of the property management firm letting me know that they were indeed associated with the two locations in question.

He understood all about unclaimed money and had recovered some himself for the company. He didn’t know where the money was being held but knew that we did. He also knew we weren’t going to give him any information unless we had some type of agreement in place.

When he asked what our fee was and heard 10%, he thought that was more than fair.

I told him I would send out an agreement and a power of attorney. However, he didn’t want anything to do with a power of attorney.

I explained to him that this was only a limited power of attorney that allows us to speak to the county on his behalf. He replied that after signing our agreement he would take care of everything himself.

Can you believe that? Here we are willing to do all of the work for them for our share and he would rather do it himself!

I said OK, once we have the signed agreement I’ll send the claim forms so you’ll have all the information you need to get your money back.

I asked if he would just give us copies of the checks and when we have that we’ll send out our invoices.

So I sent our simple four sentence agreement for this (we have different agreements depending on the state or agency) and we received a signed agreement a few days later. You can see agreement examples in the The Ultimate Guide to Your Successful Unclaimed Money Business.
Then, I sent the two claim forms for each of the properties. Here is an example of one of them (by the way, you’ll notice I clicked “no” for “Are you a professional finder?” This is because the client was submitting the paperwork. If we were submitting it, I would click “yes”:

Then it was just a matter of sitting back and waiting!

It took a little bit longer than usual for this county because of the differences in the company names involved and the proof that had to be submitted but in the end it worked out as it should.

A few months later the CFO emailed me copies of the checks he received: