(Part 1 of 2)

Of the tens of billions of dollars in unclaimed funds in the United States, the state of Ohio is one of only a few states that house over one billion of it. According to the Ohio Dept. of Commerce's Div of Unclaimed Funds, that one billion dollars is spread out across 3.5 million different accounts. While thousands of these unclaimed accounts are given back to their rightful owners annually, totaling in the tens of millions of dollars, Ohio adds another two hundred thousand accounts annually, worth millions more.

As with most other states, Ohio has trouble returning unclaimed funds to Ohioans for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is disbelief. To put it quite simply, most people simply are not aware of missing money and those that have heard about it, often believe it to be some sort of scam, unless they've heard it straight from the source. But even those that have accepted the reality of these massive amounts of abandoned assets generally don't know the first thing about locating these funds.

The Division 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 Division also provides the following list of some of the most common types of unclaimed funds in Ohio – unpaid insurance policies, dormant savings and checking accounts, unreturned rent and utility deposits, underlying shares of stock, credit memos, forgotten layaway deposits, unclaimed wages or commissions, securities, undelivered and uncashed stock dividends, credit balances, uncashed checks, intangible contents of safe deposit boxes.

If a resident of the state of Ohio hopes to be thorough in their search for missing money, there are a handful of things they can do to help themselves in their efforts. What it all boils down to is knowledge. Learning when and where to search is key to successful searches. Did you realize that not all unclaimed funds web sites are the same? Did you realize that the records are updated sporadically?

(to be continued)

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