Unclaimed Property Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

The ‘Checks In The Mail’ May Be For You

The state Treasurer’s Office recently mailed checks to 3,314 state residents worth more than $3.7 million. These are unclaimed property the treasurer’s office is tasked with returning to its rightful owners.

We’ve all heard the phrase, “the check’s in the mail,” but this time it’s real, and you may not even know it’s coming.

Recipients should have received letters in July notifying them they should be receiving a check identified as “West Virginia Cash Now.”

“I encourage all West Virginians to go back through their mail from the past month to check and see if they received an envelope from our office – you may have a check inside,” Moore said. “These checks are part of our automated unclaimed property return program and the funds are 100 percent yours, so we encourage you to open your mail and cash those checks today.”

The checks are good for six months otherwise they will be voided and the funds go back to the Unclaimed Property Division.

“We don’t want your unclaimed property check to become unclaimed property,” Moore said. “We’re doing everything we can to quickly return money to you, we just need you to cash the check.”

West Virginia Cash Now launched last year as an automated system to return unclaimed property without the need to file paperwork with the Treasurer’s Office.

W.Va. Unclaimed Property Funds Returned At Record Setting Pace

West Virginia State Treasurer Riley Moore said his office has returned more than $3.6 million worth of unclaimed property during the month of May.

“It’s really a testament to the work of my staff and my employees,” Moore said. “It is also the legislation that we had passed in the legislature a couple of sessions back that helped us modernize the Unclaimed Property Act.”

Unclaimed property is not real estate, but financial accounts or items of value where the owner has not initiated any activity for one year or longer. Examples include unpaid life insurance benefits, forgotten bank accounts and unused rebate cards.

“Many times these are financial instruments that have gone dormant or not acted upon,” Moore said. “It could be a life insurance policy, a safety deposit box or securities such as stocks and bonds and things of that nature. They’re then turned over to the state Treasurer’s Office, and then it is the state Treasurer’s job to return that property.”

Moore said that legislation that helped expand unclaimed property advertising and the ability to file claims online has helped increase public returns at record levels, along with new programs like West Virginia Cash Now.

“That allows us to just send automatic checks out when we verify individuals on our end,” he said. “$100 to $5,000 is the range of monetary value of those checks.”

Moore said the total unclaimed property cash pushed out for this fiscal year stands at a record breaking $24.3 million. He said there are multiple ways to check to see if you have unclaimed property funds.

“You can search your name on our online database at wvunclaimed property.com, or you can click on our website, wvtreasury.com,” Riley said. “Click on the unclaimed property button and you can search your name, your wife’s name, brother, sister, uncles and cousins. Let people know that they have unclaimed property because you never know what you might have in there.”

A demonstration of how to use the Unclaimed Property search site is available on the Treasurer’s YouTube page, at: https://youtu.be/K09yQ7YNKlE. To search for lost financial assets outside West Virginia, visit www.MissingMoney.com.

Nationwide, nearly 33 million people in the United States – one in every 10 – are estimated to have unclaimed property available for them to claim.

Military Medals, Abandoned Or Forgotten, Returned To Veterans And Military Families

Reforms to the state's Unclaimed Property Act allowed the treasurer’s office to eliminate a lengthy process and return these types of items directly to their rightful owners.

At a ceremony held at the Culture Center Thursday morning, State Treasurer Riley Moore returned military medals, abandoned and forgotten, in safe deposit boxes, to veterans and their families.

Reforms to the state’s Unclaimed Property Act allowed the treasurer’s office to eliminate a lengthy process and return these types of items directly to their rightful owners.

“Without these changes, prior to this bill, families would have to go through a cumbersome process,” Moore said. “They would have to settle out old safety deposit boxes with the banks, then go to a notary public to get a notarized document showing their balance had been taken care of, then they’d have to go file paperwork with my office and we could send their belongings back to them via mail.”

The ceremony honored 13 veterans from all military branches who served in wars ranging from World War II to Vietnam.

West Virginia National Guard Adj. General William Crane told the receiving families these medals had been hidden away for too long and needed a place of prominence.

“I hope that the families will display these in a really high place of honor, because they deserve to be displayed that way,” Crane said. “They don’t need to be in a safety deposit box.”

Reforms to the Unclaimed Property Act now allow the state to settle any bank fees with the owners or heirs of military medals.

W.Va. Returns $3.5 Million In Unclaimed Property Last Month

More than $3.5 million in unclaimed property was returned in West Virginia last month, state Treasurer Riley Moore said.

Moore said payouts are likely to go even faster if a new bill is signed and takes effect. The bill reduces paperwork required to complete unclaimed property transactions and creates an automated program for processing some claims, Moore’s office said.

“Thanks to recently passed legislation, in the coming months we will be able to streamline the claims process so our citizens can be reunited with their money as quickly as possible,” he said.

Moore’s office said it has also launched a map feature showing how much unclaimed property is available in a city or county. Users can also search by name.

Unclaimed property includes items such as financial accounts or valuables that haven’t seen any activity for a year or longer, the treasurer’s office said.

Unclaimed Property Returned at Record Pace in W. Va.

West Virginia Treasurer John Perdue says the state is returning unclaimed property at a record clip.

Perdue says in a news release that the treasurer’s office’s paid out more than $14 million in more than 8,000 claims through March. The record for a fiscal year, which ends in June, is $15.4 million paid out in 2008-09.

Perdue’s office says it plans to publish newspaper inserts over the next three weeks listing about 15,000 names of unclaimed property owners.

Perdue says the spike in claims this year is due to life insurance settlements and reciprocal agreements with unclaimed property offices in other states.

Perdue has returned more than $173 million to property owners since 1997.

W.Va. Unclaimed Property Claims Totaled $1.45 Million in September

The West Virginia State Treasurer’s office said in a news release it paid out $1.45 million in claims last month.

Unclaimed property can include abandoned safety deposit boxes, stock dividends left uncashed or a final paycheck left behind. By law, holders of such assets are required to turn them over to the Treasury.

Field representatives with the Treasurer’s office conduct outreach by tracking down property owners through in-house records, courthouse files and checking other documents.

If you believe you may have unclaimed property owed to you, you can fill out a claim by contacting the state treasury office. Go to www.wvtreasury.com to file an e-claim or call 1-800-642-8687 for additional information.

In addition to staff generated outreach and e-claims, people and businesses may also submit paper claims and phone claims individually, by find their names online or through a printed newspaper insert.