January 20, 2012
Locate South Dakota Lost Money – Part 1 of 2
(Part 1 of 2)
The bottom slice of bread in the Dakota sandwich is well known as the home to the monument Mt. Rushmore, but SD is holding something just as valuable but much less known. The Office of the State Treasurer is currently holding tens of millions of dollars in South Dakota unclaimed money that is owed to people living in the state. With one of the smallest state populations in the nation, SD citizens have great odds of discovering cash owed to them, if they learn where they should look.
Increased attempts by the state to reunite lost money with the actual owners have led to the giving back of roughly $2.2 million each year in recent years, but the vast majority still goes unreturned, as an average of $6.7 million is turned over to the state each year. This essentially means that the state's total grows by about $5 million each year. So even though the State Treasury Department gives no solid total, it is safe to assume that they are holding at least tens of millions.
Upon first hearing about unclaimed property, the main question many people have is – How could people possibly abandon that amount of cash? There are a number of reasons, but believe it or not there really are tens of billions waiting to be located across the country. Most of the time, though, it is as simple as not providing everyone with the right forwarding address. Once a check of some sort is sent back to a property holder, or a holder just loses contact with the rightful owner, it begins a "dormancy period". The dormancy period is a time period which must be exceeded before the cash is deemed to be "unclaimed" or abandoned, and then passed along to the state for safekeeping.
(to be continued)
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