(Part 1 of 2)

Of the tens of billions of dollars in unclaimed money in the United States, the state of Ohio is one of only a few states that house over 1 billion of it. According to the Ohio Department of Commerce's Div of Unclaimed Funds, that $1 Billion is spread over three and a half million different accounts. While thousands of these accounts are given back to their rightful owners every year, totaling in the tens of millions of dollars, OH takes in another 200,000 accounts every year, worth millions more.

Like in the majority of states, Ohio has trouble returning unclaimed money to its residents for a number of reasons, one of the most common of which is disbelief. To put it simply, the majority of people simply are not aware of forgotten funds and the few that have heard about it, generally believe it to be some type of scam, unless they've heard it straight from the state treasury department. But even those people that have recognized the reality of these massive amounts of missing funds usually don't know the first thing about locating these properties.

The Div of Unclaimed Funds in Ohio maintains the following as its mission statement: "To improve the quality of service to our customers by collecting unclaimed property equitably, managing the property wisely and effectively, and returning it timely to the rightful owners." The Div also provides the following list of the most common types of unclaimed money in Ohio – unpaid insurance policies, dormant savings and checking accounts, unreturned rent and utility deposits, underlying shares of stock, credit memos, forgotten layaway deposits, securities, unclaimed wages or commissions, credit balances, undelivered and uncashed stock dividends, intangible contents of safe deposit boxes, uncashed checks.

(to be continued)

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