Finance Wanted.

By Russ D Johnson

Generally when people think of the state of Idaho, what comes to mind? Potatoes of course. Lots and lots of potatoes. But there's also a massive pile of something else that you could say is "no small potatoes" - Idaho unclaimed money. Idaho's lost money fund has swollen to a whopping $40 million and counting and all of this money belongs to citizens wise enough to track it down and claim it.

Most people find it hard to believe that regular ID citizens have managed to just abandon $40 million, and that citizens across the nation have abandoned nearly $40 billion (yeah, with a "b", billion), but believe it or not, the odds that any given person is owed unclaimed property are greater than the odds that they aren't due a claim. The reason for this is that these forgotten funds come from so many different sources. According to the website of the Idaho State Tax Commission, the department responsible for handling these assets: "These include stocks, bonds, mutual funds, bank accounts, uncashed payroll checks, utility deposits, traveler's checks, contents from deposit boxes, and more. Most of the assets are ones that people didn't know they had or just forgot about, and sometimes they are worth thousands of dollars."

In order for cash to be considered abandoned or "unclaimed", it must lie dormant for a period of time that is specific to each state and type of asset. Idaho considered most types abandoned after 5 years of dormancy, though some are available to be claimed after only 1 year.

There are a number of reasons why money might go unclaimed, but it's often as simple as not leaving a forwarding address for financial institutions or previous employers. If a piece of mail is returned to the sender, and the rightful owner doesn't contact the seller within the dormancy period, the holder is required by law to hand the funds over to the state.

The problem Idaho has, like all other states, is reuniting lost money with its rightful owners. Despite state awareness efforts and popular media coverage, most people are still simply unaware of unclaimed money. Even those that are in the know generally don't have a clue where to begin their search. There are a handful of people actively searching, but even those people don't know all the methods they need to implement to maximize their chances of finding claims.

For the reasons stated above, Idaho now hold's over $40 million in unclaimed money, and that figure is sure to grow, because more and more money is turned over to the state all the time and it outpaces the amounts returned to the citizens. For this reason, it is incredibly important that those who are serious about searching for forgotten funds, learn how professional finders locate these monies, and then put these same tactics in to action in their own searches. There are right ways to search, and wrong ways to search, and until people learn the difference there are a number of obstacles that can stand between them and their money.

Unclaimed money and property expert Russ Johnson has been assisting Americans in finding their unclaimed money online since 1997. His site, http://www.unclaimedmoney.net, is updated regularly and offers guaranteed official searches for Idaho unclaimed money and missing money across the country.