Illinois

Being an Illinois unclaimed money finder is easier when you are not searching for money being held by the State of Illinois.

You must be a Private Detective to collect a contingent fee on behalf of an apparent owner.

They do have two main laws that you must follow:

1. The money being held has to have been in their possession for at least 24 months; and
2. The commission fee you charge cannot exceed 10%.

They don’t make it easy for you to obtain information, however.

The following was taken from information on the Illinois unclaimed money website before they changed it in the middle of 2012. Now it is difficult to get this information without calling them:

Q. Do finder firms use the state’s database to track people?

A. We take steps to ensure that this does not happen.

Unlike some states, we have a protective provision within our Act that  prohibits us from disclosing information from reports or obtained during the course of an examination unless we have the owners’ consent.

This prevents finder firms from obtaining a listing of our unclaimed property owners via a Freedom of Information Act Request.
Some states sell the information via hard-copy or electronic format to finder firms.

We are required to publish owner names on a semi-annual basis, and some  finders may target constituents they see in the newspaper.
People should be aware though that property has to be in our custody for at  least 24 months before a finder could receive a fee, and that fee is  limited to 10%.

Additionally, some finders may attempt to target people viewed on our website’s searchable database.
We limit the number of property owner entries that an individual searcher can view to attempt to prevent abuse of this data.

So, here you can see that the state knows there are people helping other  people get money that they wouldn’t otherwise have known about, and they are making things difficult for them.

My suggestion if you live in Illinois and you would like to search for unclaimed money as a business is to search in other states that are more finder friendly. 

Please click here if you are interested in learning more about becoming an unclaimed money finder.