Tweet
My rant of the day.
Before leaving California a few years ago, my wife and I moved into a rental home for a while so we could more easily sell our house. After the house sold, we of course sent a mail forwarding request to the post office. Some time after that, my insurance company sent me a $500+ refund of some kind to our old address. Here's what happened after that:
1. The post office failed to forward the letter, and instead returns it to the sender.
2. Rather than spending the two minutes it take to find us (we kept the same phone number), the insurance company instead sent the money to the California state office for unclaimed property.
3. The state deposited the money into the general fund. They never sent me a letter or otherwise made any attempt to contact me.
4. Almost two years after the fact, I accidentally discovered that the state is holding "unclaimed" property in my name (I think "stolen" would be a better word...).
5. I sent the state all of the requested information -- ID, proof of address, etc.
6. A few days ago, I received a letter from them saying that their office has received so many claims lately (300,000+ in the last year), that it will take at least six months before they can even look at mine. If the claim involved securities (which mine doesn't), they said it would take 8 or 9 months, since the securities will have been sold when they were first received and computing the resulting pay-out takes some extra effort. If all provided information isn't exactly as required, they will request the additional info only after they've reviewed the initial claim in 6+ months.
When they do pay, they don't include any interest -- so the state gets a nearly 3 year "loan" from me without my consent and without compensation.
A similar thing happened maybe 10 years ago. My kids both had savings accounts at a local savings and loan. The kids weren't into the accounts that much, so they sat idle most of the time -- in theory collecting interest. Well, after about 2 yrs of no activity, the state considers the accounts abandoned, and requires the bank to send them the funds. We never received any notice. It wasn't until a couple of years after that, when we decided to check the balance in the accounts, that we discovered that they had been "closed".
If you or members of your family currently live in CA, or ever lived there, I highly recommend taking a quick look on the unclaimed property page to see if they have stolen anything of yours too. I found they also had property of my now-deceased grandparents, among others (reclamation of which is basically impossible):
http://scoweb.sco.ca.gov/UCP/
Before leaving California a few years ago, my wife and I moved into a rental home for a while so we could more easily sell our house. After the house sold, we of course sent a mail forwarding request to the post office. Some time after that, my insurance company sent me a $500+ refund of some kind to our old address. Here's what happened after that:
1. The post office failed to forward the letter, and instead returns it to the sender.
2. Rather than spending the two minutes it take to find us (we kept the same phone number), the insurance company instead sent the money to the California state office for unclaimed property.
3. The state deposited the money into the general fund. They never sent me a letter or otherwise made any attempt to contact me.
4. Almost two years after the fact, I accidentally discovered that the state is holding "unclaimed" property in my name (I think "stolen" would be a better word...).
5. I sent the state all of the requested information -- ID, proof of address, etc.
6. A few days ago, I received a letter from them saying that their office has received so many claims lately (300,000+ in the last year), that it will take at least six months before they can even look at mine. If the claim involved securities (which mine doesn't), they said it would take 8 or 9 months, since the securities will have been sold when they were first received and computing the resulting pay-out takes some extra effort. If all provided information isn't exactly as required, they will request the additional info only after they've reviewed the initial claim in 6+ months.
When they do pay, they don't include any interest -- so the state gets a nearly 3 year "loan" from me without my consent and without compensation.
A similar thing happened maybe 10 years ago. My kids both had savings accounts at a local savings and loan. The kids weren't into the accounts that much, so they sat idle most of the time -- in theory collecting interest. Well, after about 2 yrs of no activity, the state considers the accounts abandoned, and requires the bank to send them the funds. We never received any notice. It wasn't until a couple of years after that, when we decided to check the balance in the accounts, that we discovered that they had been "closed".
If you or members of your family currently live in CA, or ever lived there, I highly recommend taking a quick look on the unclaimed property page to see if they have stolen anything of yours too. I found they also had property of my now-deceased grandparents, among others (reclamation of which is basically impossible):
http://scoweb.sco.ca.gov/UCP/
Comment