You can charge up to10% commission as a Wisconsin unclaimed money finder.
The statutory and agency requirements for finding unclaimed money in Wisconsin is listed below:
- The locator fee is limited to 10% of the value of the property.
- Agreements to pay compensation between locators and any owners/heir are not enforceable until 24 months after unclaimed property was reported to the State Treasury.
- Any agreement to locate, recover or assist in the recovery of property presumed abandoned which is entered into by or on behalf of the owner of the property must contain the following:
(a) An explanation of the services provided by the locator and a clear and prominent statement of the fee to be paid, which may not exceed 10% of actual value of the property recovered
(b) The value of the property to be claimed, computed before and after the deduction for the fee paid to the locator service
(c) A description of the property being claimed
(d) The name and address of the holder of the property
(f) The signature of the apparent owner or agent of the owner
(g) A clear and prominent statement that the owner may file a claim with DOR without the assistance of a locator service
- Every claim filed with the State Treasurer of Wisconsin must include the following.
(a) Their official claim form containing the notarized signature of the owner
(b) A signed and notarized contract that contains all the information described in item (3) above.
(c) Documentary evidence of ownership
A claim will not be considered filed unless all of the above are completed.
5. Payment will be paid directly to the owner and the locator will be responsible for collecting fees from the owner.
Please click here if you would like to print this Wisconsin unclaimed money finder summary from the Wisconsin Department of Revenue.
Wisconsin sells their unclaimed money list for $25.
There is a way for you to view records without purchasing the list, it just takes a little longer.
You can go to the Wisconsin unclaimed money search and enter a few letters of a last name.
Let’s just say you enter “Bard” (if you enter “Bar” the search engine will tell you that too many names will come up, so add an extra letter).
Now, I’m just using “Bard” as an example. You can use any combination of letters.
Once you do that and hit “search” all of the names that contain the letters “bard” will come up.
On the right you will see amounts showing either:
- less than $10
- between $10-$100
- between $100-$1000
- more than $1000
You can go to any one of the names and click on “Select”, but I like to go to the biggest and see what’s behind “more than $1000”.
When you do that you have a choice to keep looking with “find another property” or “create my claim form now”.
When you click on “create my claim form now”, you are brought to another screen asking for a little bit more information on yourself.
You have the option to click on “I am a locator”. Once you do that, you are then brought to another screen to fill in the address, email, and phone information.
You can put your own email in if you do not have the claimants yet. For the address, you can use the search methods we use using any of the online search sites and enter the correct address.
Then, you are ready to print up a claim form and you can see the exact amount of money being held!
Give it a shot and see how much money you can find.
If you don’t want to go through all of that, you can always order a list, or you can do that for a while and then order a list with the money you’ve made on commission from doing it this way.
There is plenty of money in Wisconsin and plenty of people that don’t know about it.
Check out this video for more:
Here, thousands of notices were sent out to veterans and and only 10% responded. 10%!
People need to be convinced that they have their own money being held for them!
The State might not be too convincing, but we’ll show how to get the owners to respond to you so you both get money!
If you are interested in becoming a Wisconsin unclaimed money finder please go to the opportunity page to learn more.
I am looking for unclaimed funds from Dash for Cash from one of Anthony D. Vallos’s relatives. I will give you his phone number and mailing address. If you find any results, please mail documents/paperwork, applications for signatures or call-Anthony D. Vallos, phone-1-715-558-, and/or send in mail to Anthony D. Vallos, Hayward, Wisconsin, 54843. Thank-you.
Well, I left messages for Anthony and sent him a simple agreement that we normally need notarized but removed that requirement to make it easier for him. We have not received the signed agreement. At this point I am assuming he does not want to move forward.
This information is incorrect. The Wisconsin Department of Revenue now manages the Unclaimed Property for Wisconsin and has since July 1, 2013. As a locator you must follow Wisconsin State statute 177.35
Locator cannot present themselves as working for or with the state and those that do so will receive a cease and desist letter from the state. The more a locator contacts the state the longer it will take for claims processing as it is a very small unit and each phone call means a claim isn’t getting worked as quickly as it could.
Thank you for that information. I changed Treasurer to say Wisconsin Department of Revenue. There is, and has always been a link to Wisconsin State statute 177.35 on the page.
Your name, “IHATEUCPLOCATORS” has me thinking you work in that department for the state. I think that name is really sad. Yes, they shouldn’t bother you and let you do your job, but locators provide a valuable service in helping people get money back more quickly than if they hadn’t been notified.
You said it yourself, it is a very small unit. If people don’t know about their unclaimed money and a locator doesn’t notify them, will they ever know about it? Will your small department ever be able to notify them?
Locators have incentive to find people and get the money back as quickly as possible. Unless there is some type of bonus system that I am unaware of, state employees working in the unclaimed funds department get paid the same whether they find one person or ten people, process ten claims or one hundred claims.
So, please give locators a break. They’re doing a job just like you are.
“It still blows my mind that people will share that kind of info with someone they don’t know…”
Rita,
You should see some of the emails and comments that we receive. If you go through the comments on some of the pages, you will see where I’ve deleted personal information. We have people sending their social security numbers and all of their information looking for money very often.
Sometimes people mistake our site for the the states actual site. Last week I called and left a message for a woman in Canada because my reply to her email kept getting sent back to me. She had left a message thinking she was calling Hawaii for funds owed to her father. She gave all of his information plus his phone number. If someone dishonest had that information, they really could have caused a problem for them.
Now, back to your questions. I don’t want to sound like a salesperson here, but I really think you should purchase the Guide before you get started. I think you will find it extremely helpful and answer many of your questions, including ones you haven’t thought about yet. You and your husband should feel comfortable with the money back guarantee if it turns out it is not right for you.
First off, you mention being ready to contact people. Are you contacting them by phone? Are you aware that you are subject to the same requirements of businesses for the Do Not Call list? There is a chapter explaining the Do Not Call list that also gives you information on how to get around paying for information and still being able to find out if someone is on it or not.
There is also a whole chapter on heirfinding when someone is deceased and dealing with what you need for the probate courts. The probate courts help determine who the rightful heir(s) are. You can contact anyone related to the owner of the funds, but that is just the start. You have to determine if they are entitled to the funds.
The step by step refund examples make everything clear on the refund process. In some cases if you do need a ss # and you are worried about getting it from the claimant, you can send them the claim form with a self addressed envelope to the state and the claimant can send it in themselves.
Regarding the phone conversation, there are some things that we don’t know ourselves when asked. The best thing to do is just be honest with whomever you are speaking with and let them know that you are not 100% sure on the answer but you will do your best to find out.
I hope this helps.
Mark, I am very interested in beginning my own unclaimed money finding business, but a bit reluctant to start and have a few questions…not sure who to ask. Maybe you can help. First, if you’ll bear with me on some background info on me. I’m a retired educator as of 3 years ago looking for something to do in my own time to supplement my retirement, something I can do in my own time from home. This seemed perfect, but I still have too many unanswered questions, like: 1) If I began looking for money in the state of Wisconsin (I’m from NC, but after much reading and researching, their guidelines don’t seem too stringent), how do I know if people on the online list meet the 12 month requirement of having been reported to the State’s Treasury?(without purchasing the $150 list?). That date isn’t provided, is it?
I haven’t purchased your book yet, although I probably will once I make up my mind that I’m doing this for certain. Shortly after I retired from teaching, I educated myself in medical coding in plans to do medical coding at home. I spent quite a bit of money on this, and became disillusioned when the U.S. couldn’t decide which coding system to stick with, so my plans fell through. I want to be certain I’m going to do this BEFORE I invest…(and my husband wants me to be certain also!)
I think my greatest concern is all the negative stigma I’ve read and researched about money finders. It seems like such a good idea…the whole concept…that there’s SO much money out there…so many people to be contacted…there’ no way the states could ever reach all the people on their lists, so it would seem there would be more respect for the finders trying to make an honest living by “helping” to locate all those people. I guess that’s the catch….some finders give the honest ones a bad rap.
I know the obvious things I need to get started like a nifty name, letterhead, forms, website, etc. Do I have to have a federal tax ID?
Any other advice you can offer would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!
Rita
Rita,
Thanks for your questions.
As for the 12 month term, no, I do not think you can determine that without purchasing the list.
For $150 for the list, it is well worth the investment for the additional information. You only need to find $1500 to make that back at at 10% fee.
If you go through the steps on the online search in Wisconsin, the first question they ask is if you are a finder, so they are familiar with working with finders.
As far as your main concern, this business is basically a numbers game. There are millions of people owed money and the lists are growing every day.
The more people you contact, the more people you sign up to get money back. Yes, there are people that are unwilling to do it and think it is a scam, and guess what? They’ll never get their money back because of that.
However, there are people that either have never heard of it and want their money back, or they have heard of it and don’t know how to go about it. These are the people you will reach.
I am still finding people and making money and I know other people that have purchased the Guide are doing it too. I love to see or hear about their successes.
One of the main thing you need to know about this business, as in any business, is that people are going to say no. However, there are also people that are going to say yes.
What I do is look at it as how many “no’s” does it take to get to a “yes”. If it is 10 “no’s” before a “yes” and I’ve contacted five people that say no, I know I have five more to go to get to a yes.
That way, you don’t take it personal, and it becomes more of a science.
I work with my wife. When she first started and she was met with resistance she took it very personal. In fact, she was crying one time.
Now, she doesn’t take it personal at all. The sooner someone tells her they’re not interested, the better as it saves time to move on to the next person and get closer to the one that is interested.
I hope this helps.
Thank you for your answers! I’m glad you elaborated a little about the fear of rejection by potential claimants (another of my concerns!). I have been researching the past few weeks and have a list of 10 or 12 people that I THINK I’m ready to contact. I enjoyed the challenge of digging through search engines, obits, etc., and putting pieces together like a puzzle. That part of this whole idea fits me….I’ve always liked researching on the computer. I’m almost finished with my contract/agreement that I’ve tailored like California’s. Now, I’m just going to double check that the contract covers everything Wisconsin spells out as requirements. I still have a few questions like: 1) When an owner is deceased, how do you know which family member to contact (if there are several)? 2)Somewhere I read that when I mail the contract, claim forms, etc. to the potential claimant, that should include all the documents, forms they need to sign, etc., right? How can I mail their claim forms with the contract (in a neat package), when I won’t get those forms until I submit important info to the state claims form office…and I can’t submit the claim without their SS# etc., which I’ll know only after they return the contract? I hope you can understand my question in all that wordage! (clear as mud, right?). It still blows my mind that people will share that kind of info with someone they don’t know…just based on how skeptical I know I am in this day and time when there’s such a fear of identity theft, etc. Another fear is since this is all so new to me, I’m worried that I’ll run into a bump in the phone conversation that I’m not sure how to handle, like what if they ask me a question that I totally don’t know about? I guess I could say “I’ll get back to you on that very professionally”, but don’t want to show my newness! I’m thinking that after I do some polishing and tweaking now through the weekend, I’m going to begin trying to contact people next week as I feel fairly certain that the names, numbers, addresses, etc. are the right people (I hope!) and current info. Sorry this is so lengthy. Thanks again for sharing your expertise. Once again, I probably will get your book after I convince myself and my husband that this really is going to work.
Thanks, Rita