Finance Wanted.

By Russ D Johnson

Of the tens of billions of dollars in unclaimed assets across the country, the North Star State is home to more than $300 million. MN is known for freezing cold winters, but most people don't know about the mountains of cold hard cash in the form of Minnesota unclaimed money. The best part about all of these millions is that they belong to regular citizens across the state who only need to track them down and claim them.

It's easy to dismiss unclaimed property as a myth because it is difficult for most of us to believe that our neighbors (and ourselves) simply abandoned significant amounts of money throughout our lives and that it's all just sitting out there under our noses, waiting to be discovered. A quick call to Minnesota's Department of Commerce, or the State Treasury Department in any other state will put your scam concerns at ease. This money is within reach for those citizens with a little education on the matter.

The reason unclaimed funds totals have grown so greatly across the country is because most people don't even know this cash exists, and those that do still haven't been properly trained to search for these monies. There are a number of obstacles that stand in the way of beginners who are trying to find their lost money that are easy to overcome if people know what they're doing.

One of the biggest mistakes people make when searching for forgotten funds, is searching their name at whatever website they first run across and ending their search there. For starters, very few unclaimed cash websites have reliable databases, and even when looking at data straight from the state, the information is only as good as the people updating the records. These assets are turned over to the state constantly, but that doesn't mean each record is added the second the state takes control of it.

If a Minnesota resident searches for MN missing money on Monday, but someone at the Commerce Department didn't update their system with that resident's record, then the resident would be incorrectly told they weren't owed money. Now, consider the fact that money can be turned over all year, and that many account types aren't required to be turned over to the state for 3 to 5 years, and longer in some cases. What this tells us is that searching more than once, frequently in fact, is one of the most important tactics a searcher can use, and one that all professional finders use regularly.

There are also a variety of reasons why Minnesota residents might be owed money by other states, and residents of other states might be owed MN unclaimed money. These often have to do with the location of insurance companies and corporate headquarters of employers. For these reasons, people should never limit their searches to their home state or they could miss out on significant chunks of cash with their names on it.

For further details on these tips and many more, people who are truly interested in locating all possible money owed to them should educate themselves on how to perform a thorough search and copy the tricks used by experts in the unclaimed property game.

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 Minnesota unclaimed money and missing money across the country.