Finance Wanted.

By Russ D Johnson

Montana is often known as "Big Sky Country" and is nicknamed the "Treasure State", but perhaps the state should consider merging the two for a new nickname - "Big Treasure Country", because at last check, the state's Department of Revenue is currently holding more than $21 million in Montana unclaimed money. Across the nation, states are taking in more money annually than they are able to return to the rightful owners, and MT is no exception.

The primary issue people have in locating missing money is a lack of education on the matter that keeps them from using the most important search tactics, but it's even harder in Montana because the state doesn't maintain any online search capabilities through their own state website. For a variety of reasons the state's own records can often be unreliable, but the issue is greater when the only place to consult these records is a third party site which the state must notify of any and all updates.

Montana unclaimed property can come from a variety of sources, the most common of which are: "money, uncashed checks, drafts, state warrants, uncashed payroll checks, utility deposits, interest dividends or income, savings and checking accounts, safe deposit box contents, credit balances, customer overpayments, gift certificates, unidentified remittances, stocks, bonds and uncashed coupons". Each of these types of assets has it's own unique dormancy period in each state. The dormancy period is the time that must pass before a piece of abandoned money is considered "unclaimed" and handed over to the state. The dormancy periods for most types of assets range from 1 to 5 years, but are longer in rare instances.

Due to the widely varying dormancy periods, MT unclaimed funds are constantly being turned over, and state employees aren't able to update the missing money records each time an asset comes in. On top of that, third party sites that actually make this data searchable are only as reliable as the data the state gives them. It is for this reason that anyone seeking lost money should search not once, but many times, and search regularly. It would be incredibly disappointing to search on one day, come up empty, and give up, when searching again in another day, week, month, or year would uncover a pile of cash with your name on it.

In addition to searching frequently, MT residents should search the records of other states to see if they are owed a portion of the tens of billions of dollars in forgotten funds nationwide. There are a number of reasons that a state other than the home state might owe someone money, but they are most commonly things like money owed by an insurance company that is based out of state, or money owed from former employer who's headquarters is in another state. Even a person has never left their home state, it is possible for other states to be holding money in the person's name.

There are dozens of issues that plague beginners in unclaimed money searches, but all of these can be overcome simply by learning search strategies from experts before starting the quest.

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 Montana unclaimed money and missing money across the country.